Platform: Hack The Box
Season: 9
Difficulty: Easy
OS: Linux
Date: 2025-10-30
Author: x4cc3
Artificial is an Easy Linux machine running a Flask AI training web app. The app downloads a TensorFlow wheel (v2.13.1) at build time with a known deserialization vulnerability. Running the exploit locally against the app's database dumps MD5 password hashes. SSH access as gael reveals an internal backrest backup service on port 9898. Using the backrest web UI, a backup plan targeting /root is created, and the root flag is downloaded as an archive.
| Port | Service |
|---|---|
| 22/tcp | SSH |
| 80/tcp | HTTP — Flask AI app |
Landing page
Registration page
The Dockerfile fetched tensorflow_cpu-2.13.1. 
Exploit execution
Database dump with user hashes
A public CVE and exploit for this version was used inside a Docker container to extract the app's SQLite database containing MD5 password hashes. CrackStation cracked gael's hash for SSH access.