My Journey in DANTE HTB Pro Lab

Conquering the HackTheBox Dante Pro Lab: A Review

Before tackling the HackTheBox Dante Pro Lab, I obtained my eJPT and eCPPT certifications, had almost completed the “Penetration Tester” Job Role Path, and had successfully rooted a few HTB boxes.

Dante is advertised as the perfect starting point for HTB’s Pro Labs, but that doesn’t mean it lacks its own pitfalls. Some sections definitely gave me a hard time! However, by the time I finished, I had significantly improved my ability to navigate multi-machine environments.

In total, Dante consists of 15 machines and 27 flags to find.

My Certificate

Official Lab Overview

Who is Dante for? This Pro Lab is aimed at information security beginners and junior pentesters. Dante features common vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and attack paths seen in real engagements. It is an excellent opportunity for users to increase their knowledge in both Linux and Windows exploitation.

Required Skills & Knowledge

• Familiarity with modern tools and techniques used to perform penetration testing engagements
• Good knowledge of networking and web application attacks
• A solid understanding of Linux and Windows operating systems, as well as Active Directory

Expected Attitude & Mentality

• Patience and perseverance
• Willingness to do extensive research
• Acceptance that you might fail more times than you will succeed; it’s part of the process

What Will You Gain? Dante Pro Lab is a captivating environment that features both Linux and Windows Operating Systems. You will level up your skills in information gathering and situational awareness, be able to exploit Windows and Linux buffer overflows, gain familiarity with the Metasploit Framework, and much more. Completion of this lab demonstrates skills in network penetration testing, including:

• Enumeration
• Exploit Development
• Lateral Movement
• Privilege Escalation
• Web Application Attacks

Challenges I Encountered

The main difficulties I faced during my journey were:

• Pivoting: Even with well-written notes, I ran into some issues with pivoting. Commands I was absolutely certain would work ended up causing problems. Eventually, I figured out my mistakes, updated my cheatsheet, and from then on, everything went smoothly. The tool Chisel definitely played a crucial role in teaching me how to pivot quickly and effectively.
• Stability: Unfortunately, I had to request several machine restarts because I either couldn’t establish a pivoting tunnel or the machine simply stopped responding. In lab environments, this happens, and it teaches a valuable lesson: don’t blindly fire off commands. You must carefully consider your activities and the impact your tools have on network performance. Occasionally, my pivot tunnels would drop and I had to rebuild them, but that’s part of the game and totally fine.
• Enumeration: Thanks to this Pro Lab, I truly understood that enumeration is everything. Leaving something behind means that, eventually, you will get stuck and be forced to backtrack to figure out what you missed. Enumerating the entire network wasn’t always straightforward, and figuring out how to reach certain targets could be tricky. However, drawing a physical network map on paper and adding descriptions made the task significantly easier.
• Buffer Overflow: I faced a few hurdles with the buffer overflow, but with plenty of patience, I successfully overcame them.

Pros and Cons

What I Liked:

• Guaranteed fun from start to finish.
• An excellent introduction to Active Directory and multi-machine environments.
• It teaches you to be highly organized and to take absolutely nothing for granted.
• It greatly improved my confidence with various pentesting techniques.

What I Didn’t Love:

• Occasional system crashes and instability.
• Random disconnections on pivoting tunnels.
• A few flags felt a bit too much like a “CTF” rather than a realistic scenario.

Awarded a “Gunslinger” badge after Pro Lab completion!

Final Thoughts

Dante is not extremely complex, but it hides several traps. If you don’t perform proper enumeration, or if you lack practical experience with pivoting and basic Active Directory attacks, completing this Pro Lab becomes highly unlikely.

That being said, Dante is absolutely worth the effort. I learned how to move much more effectively within a network, strengthened my pivoting and enumeration skills, and built much better note-taking habits.

As a bonus, upon completion, you receive a certificate and unlock the ability to purchase the exclusive DANTE t-shirt from the HTB store!

My contacts

• Cheatsheet — caulk
• Site — caulk
• Telegram — caulk