Challenge description

This file looks like garbage when opened directly — mostly non-printable binary bytes. Somewhere inside it, a handful of human-readable strings survive, and the level says the password is one of them, marked by leading equals signs.

Step 1 — See why opening it directly doesn't work

Try viewing the raw file and notice it's mostly unprintable binary noise — cat or opening it in a plain editor produces garbled output:

file data.txt

data.txt: data

Step 2 — Extract just the readable text

strings scans a file and prints only the sequences of printable characters, skipping the binary noise around them:

strings data.txt

(a short list of readable strings scattered among the output)

Step 3 — Narrow to the marked line

The level told you the real string is preceded by several = characters — grep for a line starting with one or more of them:

strings data.txt | grep '^='

========== [PASSWORD FOR bandit10]

The password is deliberately hidden — follow the method, you've earned it. 💪

Key takeaways

strings is the standard first move on any file that looks like binary garbage — it doesn't care what the file format actually is, it just reports every run of printable characters it finds. Combined with a targeted grep, it turns "needle in a haystack of binary noise" into a one-line command.

• strings extracts printable text from any file, regardless of its actual format
• ^= in a grep pattern anchors the match to the start of the line
• This combination — strings piped into a targeted grep — reappears constantly in reversing and forensics challenges, not just this one

Resources

• OverTheWire Bandit
• GNU binutils — strings
• CTFdojo guide — The strings Command for CTFs