Bandit 9 → 10

OverTheWire Linux Progressive

Goal: find the password among the human-readable strings in a mostly binary file, marked by several equals signs.

Approach

bandit9@bandit

bandit9@bandit:~$ strings data.txt | grep -i '=='
========== the
========== passwordb
U========== <password>

PasswordFGUW5ilLVJrxX9kMYMmlN4MgbpfMiqeyReveal

Why it works

strings parses a binary and emits runs of printable characters above a length threshold, discarding the non-text bytes. That turns an unreadable file into something line tools like grep can filter for the exact marker you need.