Unbalanced

Verified writeups for the Unbalanced machine of Hack The Box

Unbalanced

$ tldr EncFS hash crack → Squid cache → XPath injection → SSH brute

CVE / Bulletins: CVE-2020-11108 ↗

·	·
Operating system	Linux
Difficulty	Hard
Vector	Linux privesc
IP	10.10.10.200
Retirement date	2020-12-05
Skills	Rsync & EncFS Encfs2john to obtain a Hash we can crack Cracking Hashes Squid Proxy Enumeration Burpsuite Tip - Upstream Proxy Servers Squid Cache Manager Enumeration XPath Injection XPath Injection - Discovering valid users XPath Injection - Enumerating the password length of the found users XPath Injection - Obtaining users’ passwords Creating a Python script to automate XPATH Injection SSH Brute Force - Hydra Local Port Forwarding to reach the Pi-Hole web server Pi-Hole Exploitation CVE-2020-11108 [PIVOTING] - Abusing Static DHCP leases configuration Information Leakage [Privilege Escalation]

Writeups

Language	Author	Format	Link
🇪🇸 ES	S4vitar	Vídeo	Open
🇬🇧 EN	0xdf	Texto	Open
🇬🇧 EN	IppSec	Vídeo	Open

Skill resources

Curated documentation for each technique listed in the Skills column above. Sources: HackTricks, GTFOBins, PortSwigger, etc.

Skill	Source	Link
Information Leakage	HackTricks	Open
Cracking Hashes (hashcat / John)	HackTricks	Open
Port Forwarding / Pivoting	HackTricks	Open
Pi-hole default credentials	Pi-hole docs	Open
Remote Code Execution (RCE)	HackTricks	Open

Related skills worth mastering

Default credentials · Local File Inclusion (LFI) · Remote File Inclusion (RFI) · Shellshock (CVE-2014-6271)

If you liked this machine, try

• Joker — Linux, Hard
• Acute — Windows, Hard
• Talkative — Linux, Hard
• Jewel — Linux, Medium
• Teacher — Linux, Easy

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Last updated: 2026-06-07