Also, I believe UDP scans on Linux take one second per port. I can't find a source for that at the moment, but that's what I recall. Point of the story is, be careful when performing massive UDP scans (-PN -p1-65535 across a class C) because you might really tie yourself up.

I'm definitely going to work the phrase "a trove of garbage" into as many conversations as I can. That's hilarious!

Here's another scripting site I just stumbled upon (via Twitter via Command-Line Kung Fu). It looks like another good resource: http://shelldorado.com/shelltips/beginner.html

That sounds like a really beneficial experience for you. You've come a very long way in just a year, so it sounds like you did very well, all things considered. I need to upgrade my materials and take a shot at it later this year. I'm already getting anxious

That's awesome you got a free retake. I'm sure you'll slay it the next time around.

I believe SPs include previous ones, so I don't think so. I'm not 100% on that. I just know whenever I install an RTM version, all I have to install the latest SP, and not all of them in sequence.

You can use nLite to add updates, service packs, drivers, etc. to an iso.

http://www.nliteos.com/

It sounds like a memory problem (possibly CPU) more than anything. I'd get The Ultimate Boot CD and run some diagnostics. It might be a driver issue as well. Can you get into safe mode? Assuming you've got all the software up to date, I'd go with a hardware failure somewhere.

I'd assume it's still going. It's a 24-hour exam after all. I'm sure he'll fill us in ASAP.

Oh for sure! I <3 DB connection strings.

You can then get the user hashes for whatever app they're using, and you'll occasionally find people that reuse them elsewhere. Jackpot.

I think I saw you make note of that before, but thanks for the reminder

Oh yea, I've got Gray Hat Hacking, The Shellcoder's Handbook, and Hacking: The Art of Exploitation on my reading list. I fully intend on being prepared.

Thanks again for the feedback

Aw, I'm jealous.

Even if it doesn't work out at the event, we're only a few hours apart. It doesn't look like there's much in between us, but maybe we could find something halfway and meet up sometime. I'm swamped the next couple of months, but I hope my schedule will lighten up later on (/optimist).

Once again, it goes back to recon and information gathering. See what you can find in terms of users, hashes, running services, file contents, etc. Is the machine running any network services? If so, can you capture traffic on it? Search for scripts and batch files. I've found credentials stored in those on numerous occasions. Why waste time trying to be l33t when they have the info sitting right there for you?

Thanks for the feedback, MaXe.

I got through their registration challenge quickly, but I really don't want to give me a false sense of where I stand in terms of the course content. I'm solid on the networking side of things, decent with the web stuff, but I am completely lacking on shellcoding/exploit development side of things.

Interesting. I was approved for the GCIH, but I had to skip it because I had to be on-site with a customer that week. Are you from the area? I'm in Baton Rouge.

Yea, a lot of people don't know about this. I actually applied for Security East 2011 earlier today.