Hack The Box - HTB Cohort Writeup - Easy - Weekly - August 1st, 2026

August 1, 2026

Box: Cohort · OS: Linux (Ubuntu 24.04) · Difficulty: Easy Step 1 — Recon Goal: find the attack surface. sudo ip link set dev tun0 mtu 1300 # do this first, see note echo ' cohort.htb' | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts sudo nmap -p- --min-rate 2000 -T4 -Pn sudo nmap -p22,80,443 -sCV -Pn Result: 22/tcp open ssh OpenSSH 9.6p1 80/tcp open http nginx 1.24.0 → 301 https://cohort.htb/ 443/tcp open ssl/http nginx 1.24.0 | ssl-cert: Subject: commonName=cohort.htb | Subject Alternative Name: DNS:cohort.htb, DNS:*.cohort.htb What matters: the certificate SAN contains *.cohort.htb…