C:\CTF\GASLIGHT\ICONSKETCH.EXE _□X

ICON-SKETCH

forensics 127 solves by riyc

Challenge

the pee people found the first version of the gaslightCTF icon... apparently theres a flag in here?

File given: icon.zip, a single icon.png.

Approach

Check properties. The image is an Apple Pencil or Procreate sketch export, and those pack a lot of metadata into EXIF and XMP fields that don't normally get looked at. Pulling the file's properties surfaces base64 sitting right in the title:

dHpob3J0c2cuLi57cjUuZy4uZy5oZi4uLi4ud18uLi5rLi5oPy4=

Decoding it gives something that's clearly not readable text yet, but is the right shape:

tzhortsg...{r5.g..g.hf.....w_...k..h?.

That's a reverse-alphabet substitution (Atbash), and running it through gets most of the way to a flag:

gaslight...{i5.t..t.su.....d_...p..s?.

The other half is hiding in a second field, the "AOT" title, also base64:

MmUgMmUgMmUgMmUgMmUgMmUgMmUgMmUgNDMgNTQgNDYgMmUgMmUgMmUgNWYgMmUgNjggMzQgMmUgNWYgMmUgMmUgNzAgNzAgMzAgNzMgMzMgMmUgMmUgMzIgNjIgNWYgMmUgMzEgNzMgMmUgMmUgN2Q=

which decodes to a run of hex byte pairs, and those turn into:

........CTF..._.h4._..pp0s3..2b_.1s..}

Putting it together

Each decoded half has the flag's characters sitting in different positions, with everything else left as dots. Lining them up fills in the gaps:

gaslight...{i5.t..t.su.....d_...p..s?.
........CTF..._.h4._..pp0s3..2b_.1s..}