Hidden Messages contract uses simple steganography and anti-forensics techniques to hide a message from players. The players need to pay close attention to small details and use their digital forensics skills to analyze the file and find the encrypted flag.
As a digital forensics’ investigator, it was just another day at work for Detective Jane. However, this particular day turned out to be more exciting than she had anticipated. While investigating a notorious criminal organization called the Order of Hades, Jane stumbled upon a lead that led her to Maksim, one of the organization’s top operatives.
After obtaining a warrant, Jane and her team raided Maksim’s house and found his laptop. His laptop’s hard disk was encrypted so they tried different password cracking technniques and their previous knowledge on the organization to finally decrypt his hard disk. Then, They began scouring through his files, hoping to find any incriminating evidence that could help take down the Order of Hades once and for all. As they searched, they came across a small file that caught their attention. It was heavily encrypted and seemed out of place with the other files on Maksim’s laptop.
The team immediately became suspicious and began working to decrypt the file. After several hours of intense work, they finally managed to crack its encryption and open the file to find out that it did not contain any useful data. To their surprise, the file seemed very normal at the first glance, but contained some strange words that were not understandable. They are suspecting that a hidden message, contained in this file, had been sent to Maksim’s boss within the Order of Hades organization to help him not to be caught.
Realizing the severity of the situation, Jane immediately detained Maksim and took him into custody until further notice.
As Maksim sat in his cell, he couldn’t help but wonder how the investigators had managed to crack his laptop’s hard disks encryption. He had always been careful with his digital tracks and had never suspected that he would be caught so easily. But now, he is hoping that his boss escaped safely.
Hello Agent,
We have received some bad news from our sources about a Order of Hades organization is planning to vanish for some time after detaining one of their members, Maksim. Based on our sources, if Order of Hades organization vanished, they disappear like a ghost and we will not be able to chase them any more, so we need to arrest their boss as quickly as possible. Thus, there was a seemingly normal file found on Maksim’s laptop in his house after detaining him and we need your expertise in the digital forensics field to let us know if it is a normal file or not.
We have attached the file to be analyzed using your skills and to provide us with your results about it.
We understand that this mission seems difficult, but we have faith in your abilities. If you choose to accept this mission, you will be provided with all the necessary resources to complete it. Good luck, Agent. Catching the boss of Order of Hades organization rests in your hands.
As always, Special Agent K. The Contract is yours, if you choose to accept.
Flag format: Hacktoria{part1-part2-part3-part4}, example: Hacktoria{I_hoxed-FounD-THE-p@ssw0rd}
You need to solve the challenge in order to get the flag and be able to decrypt the contract card with the flag!
Disclamier: I made this challenge previously for Hacktoria, and the featured image and is made by them.