Titanic is a very easy Linux machine that is great for total beginners to practice enumeration and basic privilege escalation.

Cicada is an excellent beginner-friendly Windows box designed for those new to Windows pentesting, without requiring any knowledge of Active Directory or its attack vectors and strategies. It focuses on the early stages of enumeration, which are essential for tackling more advanced machines, as well as some basic manual checks you can perform once you obtain a user shell.

In this article, we explore the fundamental concepts of Active Directory (AD) that every pentester and red teamer should understand. From essential terminology to the inner workings of authentication mechanisms like Kerberos and LDAP, we set the stage for learning how to identify and exploit vulnerabilities for privilege escalation and system compromise.

This is an insane Windows machine with one of the largest attack surfaces I’ve ever encountered on a single target. One could even argue that it deserves to be published as an Endgame or perhaps even a mini Pro Lab.

Cat is a Medium Linux machine that covers a wide range of realistic penetration testing concepts. With its focus on various practical vulnerabilities, it provides a great opportunity to practice both white-box and black-box penetration testing. It’s also an excellent box to enhance your enumeration skills and deepen your understanding of real-world attack scenarios.

"Trickster" is a medium-difficulty Linux machine on HackTheBox that challenges you with technologies like Git, MySQL, Docker, and vulnerabilities such as SSTI and CSRF. This write-up covers the key steps and techniques I used to exploit the machine, highlighting the creative enumeration and exploitation required to capture the flags.

BigBang is an insane box disguised as a hard one. It was great practice for both web and Linux penetration testing with its variety of vulnerabilities that you needed to exploit to either gain a foothold on the server or elevate your privileges from one user to another on your way to root. It was also an excellent box for practicing writing and chaining exploits for multiple CVEs, especially in the first few hours when the PoCs were not publicly available.

BackFire is a challenging Hard Linux machine on HackTheBox that demands creativity in enumeration and exploitation. Packed with numerous rabbit holes, it tests your patience and persistence, making the path to root all the more rewarding.