The secret of a Queen

Platform: HackTheBox | Category: Misc | Difficulty: N/A | Author: D3v0o0Nu11 | Date: 2026-02-10

Description

Decrypt the code and find the Queen's secret!

Solution Approach

Core idea: Identify the weakness from source review or fingerprinting first. Iterate with incremental payloads instead of guessing.

Steps

1. First, unzip the .zip file given.

2. Check the file type, to make sure it's really is png or not.

3. It's really is, now use zsteg.

4. Got nothing.

5. I did binwalk, foremost and got no hidden files inside.

6. Let us see the image then.

7. Confused what's this.

8. So i did a research.

9. Turns out it's a MARY STUART CODE.

10. I use this online tool to decode the code.

11. Hmm.. The plaintext we got give us the wrong flag.

REDACTED

1. So i did a research again about babington - queen mary and found this.

2. Got us the correct flag!

Flag

REDACTED

Lessons Learned

1. Identify the weakness from source review or fingerprinting first.
2. Iterate with incremental payloads instead of guessing.
3. Reuse the same pattern in future engagements.