Hack The Box Series

I’m officially starting my Hack The Box (HTB) series, where I’ll document my experiences working through labs and machines as I continue developing my cybersecurity skills.

Before I even touched a machine, it took me three full days just to get my environment working. I had to troubleshoot my VirtualBox setup, install my virtual machine (Parrot OS), and configure the tools I needed inside the VM — including OpenVPN and Telnet. There was a lot of trial and error involved, but that’s part of the process when you're learning.

Recently, I shifted gears from TryHackMe (THM) to Hack The Box because I wanted more hands-on experience. HTB definitely delivers on that promise. Instead of guided walkthroughs, you're thrown into the environment and expected to figure things out. Honestly, I like that approach. It forces me to think through problems and apply what I’ve learned instead of relying on step-by-step instructions.

To even get started, I had to figure out how to install and configure OpenVPN and Telnet on my Linux system. After that, I had to revisit commands and concepts I learned last year in earlier courses. It was a bit of a refresher moment, but once everything was working, I was finally able to connect to the platform and start interacting with the machines.

The first machine I completed was Meow, and I successfully captured the root flag.

At the end of the lab, Hack The Box asked me to rate the difficulty level. For the very first starter machine, I’d probably rate it around a 3 out of 5 — mostly because of the setup and environment configuration leading up to it. Once everything was working, the actual machine was a great introduction to how HTB labs are structured.

Regardless, I’m happy I pushed through the setup challenges and got my first machine completed. Looking forward to continuing the journey and learning more as I go.

🔗 HTB Achievement:
https://labs.hackthebox.com/achievement/machine/3214417/394