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GHOST PACKETS

Analyze Wireshark PCAP packets to identify covert channels hidden within DNS queries embedded inside ICMP destination unreachable payloads.

Tools Used

WiresharkPython

Overview

Given a PCAP capture file containing gaming traffic. Examining the protocol distribution reveals an anomaly: a few ICMP packets at the very end of a capture dominated by TCP gaming packets.

Reconnaissance

Using the filter icmp.type == 3 isolates 5 ICMP Destination Unreachable packets. These packets are suspicious because they all originate from an internal IP and carry embedded UDP DNS packets.

Exploitation Strategy

Expanding the packet payload down to the original UDP DNS query layers exposes domain query labels of the format: <hex-data>.p[N].ctf.com.

We extract the hex payloads from packets #565, #568, #571, #574, and #577 and reconstruct the flag.

Solution Code

parts = [
    "4b-61-61-6c-7b-62-72-33-61-6b",
    "31-6e-67-5f-62-34-64",
    "5f-77-31-74-68",
    "5f-77-31-72-65",
    "73-68-34-72-6b-7d"
]

flag = ''.join(
    bytes([int(x, 16) for x in p.split('-')]).decode()
    for p in parts
)
print(flag)

Flag

Kaal{br3ak1ng_b4d_w1th_w1resh4rk}