Learn How to Hack Systems By Playing the Bandit Wargame

You can play this game to learn the basics of the Unix / Linux terminal "shell" command prompt, and many other essential skills used in computer networking, including hacking.

I'll write much more about this soon, including a detailed description of how to play it and, especially, how to begin being able to play it.

This is the link to the game:

https://overthewire.org/wargames/bandit/

To play it you will need:

• An internet connection.
• A computer or device of some kind to look at the web pages (like the web page in the link above). Each level of the game has its own web page, with instructions on how to get to the next level. These aren't "cheat" instructions but the basic tasks which you will need to know in order to conquer that level.
• A way of remotely logging in to another computer on the internet via "Secure Shell", usually known as SSH. This can be done in a few different ways, including using the Windows Command Prompt, the Terminal window (i.e. command prompt) in Linux, or on a Mac. There are other ways to do it also, e.g. using a Terminal emulator program such as PuTTY, though I found the plain command prompt to work better and faster for this game.

To start off, read the information on the web page above. Then go to the Level 0 page, which you can find at the left hand side of the screen on the OverTheWire Bandit Wargame website, and there will be further instructions there.

You will also need to know how to use these instructions to log into a remote computer using SSH (I will describe this more soon).

You will also need to know basic Linux/Unix commands. The ones you are likely to need for each level (you may not need all of them) are suggested on the web pages for each level.

The goal of each level is to find the password (and/or anything else, but usually just the password) which will allow you to log in to the next level via SSH.

Each level has its own web page with instructions, which are seen on the left side of the website. Once you complete a level, go to the web page for the next level to find out what do to next.

You can't really skip the levels (without cheating, e.g. by doing a Google search for cheats, but it's not like you're getting paid to play this, so cheating will take out a lot of the reason for playing it, which is to learn what to do on your own.

You're totally allowed to use Google or any other internet search, or textbooks, etc., other than specifically looking for cheats for this game.

You will almost certainly need to use Google (or some type of search) to figure out how to do most of the things in the game. This is how you learn. Real hacking is like this too, since a lot of ways to do things can (obviously) be found online by searching the internet.

Further instructions will follow soon...

I did, it was the first time ive done anything like that. there were about 34 levels, they said the highest anyone from MIT had got in the first hour (i.e. the total time allowed) was i think 23. there were i think 2 ppl who were way ahead of everyone else and got to 20-22, I got to 12 which was about the equal next highest (that I noticed, there were a lot of posts to looks at though)and there were many ppl in the levels a few below that

I got frustrated with putty and found the plain ssh in the windows command prompt was easier + quicker for opening and closing so many connections. the servers seem to be still running , i suspect they might be all the time, so you can still go on with it even though its not part of the competition, its a really good learning tool i think, more fun than just standard exercises are. i got into level 13 after it finished, it took ages like about half an hour , lol, I'm still wondering how you'd do that one quickly without being an absolute wiz with decompression tools and being able to identify which type of compression (or archive) a file is (with no file extension to give it away like on windows) just by looking at the binary data in the file i think i'll see how much further i can get , if i get the time between all the things that are actually due and assessable. its def very educational!

I've got the level 15 pw now.... this is addictive I should be working on assessments XD

Level 16 hahaha that one took a while . I really have to stop doing this now. I'm learning a heap of new things though

thanks :) i have resisted doing any more lol, since too many other things that are due. and its getting slower now per level. there was one level about 14 or 15 i never figured out how to do in windows command line ssh so i used the kali one which worked in 2 mins. yeah, i think its a great way to refresh and learn new linux skills it looks like the later levels may be more security specific than the earlier ones e.g. for level 16 you need to port scan

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