Getting Started - Privillage Escalation: I feel dumb

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So this challenge made me feel really stupid lol.

I have a really bad habit(or good???) of over complicating while doing pen test challenges.

To get the first answer all I had to do is put in “sudo -su user2” and I would have been logged in.

But nowhere on the material did it say that was the answer.

So I ended up using ‘sudo -u user2 /bin/bash ./test.sh’ with ‘test.sh’ containing File Read (a) for bash from GTFOBins.

I was able to get the flag for user2 and id_rsa for root easily after that, but I feel really dumb for not knowing the intended way of getting in.

What lesson should I learn from this? Git gud? At least I solved it in an interesting way? I’m cooked?

I genuinely do not know… ;_;

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There are many solutions. The more solutions you know, the better. Over-complicating is not an issue; use it to your advantage. If you learn how to solve things simply, you can use both methods.

That self-doubt is what science calls ‘Impostor Syndrome.’ It’s completely normal and happens to everyone. Focus on the fact that you found a solution, and you can easily learn the simple way.

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