Try Hack Me – Advent of Cyber 3 – Day 6 – Local File Inclusion

What is a Local File Inclusion (LFI) vulnerability?

It is a web application vulnerability that allows the attacker to include and read local files on the server. These files could contain sensitive data such as cryptographic keys, databases that contain passwords, and other private data. An LFI vulnerability happens due to a developer’s lack of security awareness. In some cases, developers need to include the content of other local files within a specific page. Suppose a developer includes files without proper input validation. In that case, the LFI vulnerability will exist as a developer should never trust user input and keep all inputs from users to be filtered and sanitized. The main issue of these vulnerabilities is the lack of input validation, in which the user inputs are not sanitized or validated, and the user controls them.

I spent solid 2 hours on this exercise and followed this video tutorial to complete this task. Definitely not a beginner level.