HTB Starting Point — Meow
Box info | OS: Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS | Difficulty: Very Easy | Tier: 0 | Status: Starting Point Skills: TCP basics, Telnet protocol nuances, weak credentials Pwned: 2026-04-26 TL;DR Meow is HTB’s first Starting Point box. One open port (23/tcp — Telnet), root login with an empty password, flag at /root/flag.txt. The interesting lesson isn’t the exploit — it’s why nc fails to talk to a Telnet server when raw sockets do not, and how to recognise protocols that need negotiation. ...