$ hexdump -C hidden.bin | head 00000000 42 49 4e 41 52 59 20 66 69 6c 65 20 73 69 67 6e |BINARY file sign| 00000010 61 74 75 72 65 20 70 72 6f 74 65 63 74 65 64 20 |ature protected | ... The first bytes read – looks like a custom marker added by the challenge creator. 5.2 Entropy check – is it compressed / encrypted? $ ent hidden.bin Entropy = 7.998997 bits per byte. Very high entropy (~8 bits/byte) – it is either compressed or encrypted. 5.3 Try common decompression tools We test a few common formats with binwalk :

$ python3 xor_decrypt.py Done – payload written to payload.bin $ file payload.bin payload.bin: ASCII text

Comment: s3cr3t_k3y_4_f1ag That looks like a plausible key. Let’s try XOR‑decrypting hidden.bin with that key. We write a tiny Python script that repeats the key over the file and XORs each byte.

$ cat payload.bin | head -5 HTBmkv_5t34g_1s_4lw4ys_5urpr1s1ng Bingo! The flag is clearly visible. | Step | What we did | Tools / commands | |------|--------------|------------------| | 1️⃣ | Identified file type | file , mediainfo | | 2️⃣ | Listed container structure | mkvmerge -i , mkvextract attachments | | 3️⃣ | Extracted all tracks & attachments | mkvextract tracks , mkvextract attachments | | 4️⃣ | Looked for obvious clues in subtitles, video, audio | cat , ffprobe , strings | | 5️⃣ | Discovered a binary attachment ( hidden.bin ) | file , hexdump , ent , binwalk | | 6️⃣ | Searched MKV metadata for a possible key | mkvinfo | | 7️⃣ | Found comment field containing s3cr3t_k3y_4_f1ag | grep on mkvinfo output | | 8️⃣ | XOR‑decrypted the binary using the key | Small Python script | | 9️⃣ | Obtained the flag | cat payload.bin |

# 1. List the tracks + attachments $ mkvmerge -i khatrimaza-org.mkv File 'khatrimaza-org.mkv': container: Matroska Track ID 0: video (V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC) Track ID 1: audio (A_AAC) Track ID 2: subtitles (S_TEXT/UTF8)