Exploit Development Loop

Write exploits iteratively — run, observe, fix, repeat until the flag drops.

Workflow

1. Understand the vulnerability — Read challenge source/binary analysis first
2. Write initial exploit — Start simple, add complexity as needed
3. Test against target — Run locally first, then remote
4. Debug failures — Read output carefully, add debug prints, check assumptions
5. Iterate — Fix and re-run until flag captured
6. Clean up — Save working exploit as solve.py, flag to flag.txt

Exploit Templates

Binary Exploitation (pwntools)

#!/usr/bin/env python3
from pwn import *