Map the attack surface
You have just landed on the box as student. Before you can escalate, you need to know what you are working with. Run the core enumeration checks and note the one clear anomaly you find.
Confirm your (lack of) privileges, then hunt for SUID programs. One standard command has had its SUID bit switched on by the administrator — find it and write it down. You will exploit it in the next module.
How it works: the terminal below is a real Linux machine running in your browser. Click it and
type. Tasks tick themselves off as you complete them; questions are answered in the box under each task.
Press Reset any time for a fresh machine. Your password on this machine (for
sudo) is student.
Hints
`id` shows your groups — notice there is no `sudo` among them.
`find / -perm -4000 -type f 2>/dev/null` lists SUID files; one of them is a common command that should never be SUID.
Solution explanation
id confirmed you are a plain user — no sudo group, no shortcut to root. The find / -perm -4000 sweep listed every SUID program, and among the normal ones (su, passwd, mount…) sat the odd one out: /usr/bin/find. A search tool has no reason to run as root, so that SUID bit is a mistake — and in the next module you will turn it into a root shell.
Show solution
cd /home/student
id
find / -perm -4000 -type f 2>/dev/null
echo /usr/bin/find > notes.txt