Overview
HackTheBox is a great online platform for practicing penetration testing - users submit vulnerable machines and challenges and invite users (both free and premium subscriptions) to poke at them. It's a great way to learn - the only downside I've come across so far as a free user is that you're hitting the machine at the same time as other users. Occasionally machines get overwhelmed, or someone breaks something or changes some files, or someone leaves too many breadcrumbs behind and spoils things for others. You can always reset a machine back to its initial starting state, but that can get annoying if you have to redo exploit after exploit (at least it's good practice!).
Aside from the slight inconveniences from sharing, it's a great platform and place to learn - I highly recommend it for anyone who's looking for penetrating testing resources. Note - you may have to "hack" your way into the
website to get your invite code ;)
As a general rule, users can't submit their solutions and walkthroughs for machines and challenges until after they're retired. Luckily, Bastion was retired just recently, and I'm excited to post my first HackTheBox walkthrough on my blog. Bastion is the first Windows machine I attempted on HackTheBox, and it was certainly a fun learning experience.
