Expressway

Reading Time: 2 min read

#ike#isakmp#CVE-2025-32463

Start 09:02 21-09-2025

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Scope:
10.10.11.87

Recon

Nmap

sudo nmap -sV -sC -sT -p- expressway.htb -T5 --min-rate=5000 -vvvv -Pn

PORT   STATE SERVICE REASON  VERSION
22/tcp open  ssh     syn-ack OpenSSH 10.0p2 Debian 8 (protocol 2.0)
Service Info: OS: Linux; CPE: cpe:/o:linux:linux_kernel

Only one port showed up so I decided to run a UDP scan as well.

sudo nmap -sV -sC -sU -p- expressway.htb -T5 --min-rate=5000 -vvvv -Pn

Discovered open port 500/udp on 10.10.11.87

Since the 500 port showed up I reran the scan focussing on this port.

sudo nmap -sV -sC -sU -p500 expressway.htb -T5 --min-rate=5000 -vvvv -Pn

PORT    STATE SERVICE REASON              VERSION
500/udp open  isakmp? udp-response ttl 63
| ike-version:
|   attributes:
|     XAUTH
|_    Dead Peer Detection v1.0

500/UDP - ISAKMP

Using this resource I was able to learn more about this service.

Reading further down:

Let’s get to it:

ike-scan -M --showbackoff expressway.htb

IKE Xauth

Since we’re dealing with Xauth here we’ll have to follow along with this part:

Using the -A aggressive mode we can acquire hashes and identities in cleartext:

As well as the psk hashes:

Hash cracking

I can find the correct hash format as follows:

The ike-scan previously told us we’re dealing with a SHA1 hash:

Let’s get to cracking.

ike@expressway.htb
freakingrockstarontheroad

Foothold

SSH as ike

We can use these creds to login via ssh:

Here we can instantly pick up user.txt.

Privilege Escalation

Enumeration

I noticed this user was part of the proxy group:

We weren’t able to run sudo either:

For automated enum I ran linpeas:

From my memory I had previously found an exploit that could easily give us root by exploiting this sudo version:

Let’s try it out:

EZ PZ root.

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Finished 09:56 21-09-2025