“Nameless”

Challenge Problem :

“Strip my statically linked clothes off”

The given executable is statically linked and stripped which means reversing will be a bit tougher. However, “main” isn’t too complicated and so we’ll be able to guess what functions are used.

undefined8 FUN_00400b4d(void) 
{ 
char cVarl; 
uint uVar2;
int iVarl; 
undefined8 uVar3; 
undefined8 uVar4; 
byte bVar2; 

uVar2 = fc_1(0); 
fc_2((ulong)uVar2); uVar3 = fc_3("flag.txt",aDAT_00492aa4); 
uVar4 = fc_3("out.txt",GDAT_00492aaf); 
while( true ) 
        { cVarl = fc 4(); 
        if (cVarl = -1) break; 
        iVarl = fc_5(); 
        bVar2 = cVarl A (char)iVarl + (char)(iVarl /0x666) * -0x66 + 1U; 
         fc_6(bVar2,(char)uVar4,bVar2); 
fc_7(uVar3);
1 fc_7(uVar4); 
return 0; 

Unique disassembled functions from top to bottom:

1. syscall with eax=0xc9 (time syscall) – time.
2. uses the time as a parameter – srand.
3. takes filename as first parameter – fopen.
4. takes FILE* as input, return value is compared with EOF (-1) – fgetc.
5. does not accept parameters return value is used, uses shared global variables with srand – rand.
6. number of parameters is off, the function uses output’s FILE* and a manipulated value – fputc.
7. FILE* parameter, return value unused – fclose

Renaming to :

{ 
    char c; 
    uint t; 
    int rand_num; 
    FILE *flag; 
    FILE *out; 

t = time((time t *)0x0); 
srand((uint)_t); 
flag = (FILE *)fc_3("flag.txt",&DAT_00492aa4); 
out = (FILE *)fc_3("out.txt",‘DAT_00492aaf); 
while( true ) { 
      _c = fgetc(flag); 
      if ((char)_c = -1) break; 
      rand_num = rand(); 
      fputc((int)(char)_c A rand_num % 0x666 + 1U,out); 
fclose(flag); 
fclose(out); 
return 0; 
} 

As you can see, the actions of the binary are much more clear.
it seeds with time(0), reads characters from the flag one by one
and then xors them with a random value between 1 and 666. Since the challenge is given to us inside a .rar -, we can use the modification time of out.txt to guess the time that was passed to the srand.

$ stat -c %Y out.txt
1586541672

1586541672 is the timestamp we can use to start guessing with.

int main()
{
	FILE *out = fopen("out.txt", "r");
    char buff[35] = {0}, test[35] = {0};
	fread(buff, 1, 34, out);
	unsigned int t = 1586541672;
	
	do
	{
		srand(t--);
		for(char i = 0; i < 6; i++)
			test[i] = buff[i] ^ rand() % 0x666 + 1;
	} while(strcmp(test, "hexCTF"));

	srand(t + 1);
	for(char i = 0; i < 34; i++)
		test[i] = buff[i] ^ rand() % 0x666 + 1;

	printf("%s\n", test);

    fclose(out);
}

The script then prints our flag :

hexCTF{nam3s_ar3_h4rd_t0_r3m3mb3r}