CHALLENGE INFORMATION
 | Platform: TryHackMe Event: Advent of Cyber 2025 Day: 00 Title: Advent of Cyber Prep Track |
Description
Get ready for the Advent of Cyber 2025 with the Advent of Cyber Prep Track, a series of warm-up tasks aimed to get beginners ready for this year’s event.
Summary
This room introduces a ten‑mission beginner series on TryHackMe, covering password creation, malware scanning, basic Linux/Windows file navigation, breach checking, router hardening, app permission revocation, data leakage via chatbots, and HTTP log analysis.
Each mission provides a simple task and a flag to capture. The guide also includes prize info, rules, community links, and a festive storyline set in Wareville.
Welcome to Advent of Cyber 2025
We begin by reviewing the sections covering prizes, rules, qualification criteria, certificates and badges, and officially recognized video walkthroughs.
Question-1: Got it!
No answer needed
How to use TryHackMe
This section provides a brief guide on using TryHackMe’s tools – AttackBox, virtual machines, split-screen functionality, direct links, and remote connections – to complete the daily beginner challenges of Advent of Cyber.
Question-1: Got it!
No answer needed
Join our community
This section encourages readers to follow TryHackMe on various social platforms and to join its large Discord community, where members discuss Advent of Cyber challenges, receive assistance, learn about events, and access exclusive swag.
Question-1: Got it!
No answer needed
Introduction
This section presents a brief introduction and narrative setup.
Storyline
The snow has started falling in Wareville, home of The Best Festival Company (TBFC). The team is preparing for SOCMAS, the annual cyber celebration, but something is not right. Systems are glitching, passwords are failing, and McSkidy suspects something is afoot. This name keeps coming up: King Malhare. What could it mean?
Before joining the response team, we complete ten short missions that teach key cybersecurity skills and reveal clues for Advent of Cyber 2025. Each mission opens via a View Site button in a split-screen view, with instructions on the left and the interactive challenge on the right.
Question-1: Warm me up!
No answer needed
Password Pandemonium
We receive an alert regarding seventy-three weak TBFC accounts (even P@ssw0rd123). The challenge requires crafting a password of at least twelve characters, mixing uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols, and ensuring it does not appear in any breach list. We suggest !20AdventOfCyber25!.
Question-1: What’s the flag?
<redacted-flag>
The Suspicious Chocolate.exe
The task requires using a simulated VirusTotal scanner – we click Scan, review the report (forty-nine clean, one malicious), and determine whether the executable is safe or malicious.
With only two choices available, we have a fifty-percent probability of success. These odds are not unfavorable.
Question-1: What’s the flag?
<redacted-flag>
Welcome to the AttackBox!
The task is straightforward: locate and read the hidden welcome message by listing files, navigating to the challenges/ directory, and displaying welcome.txt using cat.
Alternatively, we retrieve it directly with cat challenges/welcome.txt.
Question-1: What’s the flag?
<redacted-flag>
The CMD Conundrum
The task requires using Windows Command Prompt to locate a hidden flag file: we list files with dir, reveal hidden items with dir /a, then display the flag using type hidden_flag.txt.
Alternatively, we retrieve the flag directly with type mystery_data\hidden_flag.txt.
Question-1: What’s the flag?
<redacted-flag>
Linux Lore
The challenge requires searching McSkidy’s home directory for a hidden message: we navigate to /home/mcskidy/, list all files with ls -la, then display the secret flag using cat .secret_message.
Alternatively, we complete the task directly with cat /home/mcskidy/.secret_message.
Question-1: What’s the flag?
<redacted-flag>
The Leak in the List
The task requires using a breach-checking service – such as Have I Been Pwned – to determine whether [email protected] appears in any leaked database, then noting which domain is flagged as Compromised.
Question-1: What’s the flag?
<redacted-flag>
WiFi Woes in Wareville
The task requires logging into the router (username: admin, password: admin), navigating to the Security Settings, and replacing the default password with a strong one that meets the validation requirements. We suggest W4r3v1ll3W1llN0tF4ll!!!.
Question-1: What’s the flag?
<redacted-flag>
The App Trap
The challenge requires inspecting the account’s connected apps, identifying the one with suspicious permissions (for example, password-vault access), and revoking its access to stop the data leak.
We wonder why an Eastmas Scheduler application would require Password Vault access.
Question-1: What’s the flag?
<redacted-flag>
The Chatbot Confession
The challenge requires reviewing the chatbot’s conversation, identifying messages that contain private data, and submitting those as the answer.
Sharing internal links, credentials, or security tokens constitutes poor security practice.
Question-1: What’s the flag?
<redacted-flag>
The Bunny’s Browser Trail
The challenge requires examining the provided HTTP logs, comparing the entries to normal browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge), and pinpointing the anomalous user-agent string.
We wonder who would use BunnyOS during the Christmas season.
Question-1: What’s the flag?
<redacted-flag>
The Finish Line
This section invites us to continue learning with TryHackMe, earn raffle tickets for the Advent of Cyber giveaway, and anticipate the main event on the Advent of Cyber landing page.
Question-1: Bring on Advent of Cyber 2025!
No answer needed