megaxord

Overview

Overall difficulty for me (From 1-10 stars): ★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Some pesky wizard stole the article I was writing. I got it back, but it’s all messed up now :(

Hint: the wizard used the same magic on every character…

Author: gsemaj

Difficulty: Beginner

Find the flag

In this challenge, we can download a file:

┌──(root🌸siunam)-[~/ctf/BuckeyeCTF-2022/Crypto/megaxord]
└─# cat megaxord.txt 
7/=*x
96?=*+x1+x96x5=*1;96x=6,=*,9165=6,x96<x5=*;096<1+16?x>*96;01+=x:-14,x9*7-6<x9x41.=u9;,176x+-(=*0=*7x,=4=.1+176x+=*1=+tx:9+=<x76x,0=x9(96=+=x,73-+9,+-x>*96;01+=x
                                                     -(=*x
                                                          =6,91v*7<-;=<x>1*+,x:!x
                                                                                 9:96x6,=*,9165=6,tx+=;76<x:!x�
    x6,=*,9165=6,tx49,=*x:!x
                            9:96x�*96<+tx96<x,7<9!x:!x
                                                     7/=*x
96?=*+x96<x1,+x(9*=6,x;75(96!tx9+:*7tx,0=7/=*x
96?=*+x,=4=.1+176x+=*1=+x,93=+x5-;0x7>x1,+x>77,9?=x>*75x,0=x
                                                            -(=*x
                                                                 =6,91x,=4=.1+176x+=*1=+tx(*7<-;=<x:!x
                                                                                                      7=1x5(96!vix
       0=x>1*+,7/=*x

Hmm… As the challenge name suggested, this txt file has been XOR’ed!

Now, we can upload this file to CyberChef to brute force to XOR keys:

Looks like key 58 is the XOR key!

Let’s use that key to reverse back to plaintext!

Found it!

Flag:

buckeye{m1gh7y_m0rph1n_w1k1p3d14_p4g3}

Conclusion

What we’ve learned:

Brute Forcing XOR Key