Prometheus (12 Layers of Insanity)

A recruitment challenge for those who see what others cannot.

The binary guards an encrypted message. To reveal it, you must provide the correct 28-character key. There is no backdoor, no shortcut, no unintended solution—only the key.

The verification process spans twelve interconnected layers. Each depends on others. Disrupting one cascades through all. The binary knows its own shape and will notice if you change it.

Some defenses are apparent through static analysis. Others manifest only at runtime. A few exist in the liminal space between instruction and execution—observable only through their effects, never their implementation.

Difficulty 6/6

## Rules

- Standard crackme rules apply

- The solution is the 28-character key

- Picture of the solved challenge to be posted only 48h after completion.

- No external services or network required

- Linux x86_64

The reward prize and job offer will terminate in 24 hours.

File Information

Submitter Prometheus

Submitted 01/21/2026

Category CrackMe

View File

Threw this into Binary Ninja, turned out to be Rust-compiled ELF64 PIE not C as DiE claims, debug strings like src/main.rs src/vm/dispatcher.rs src/crypto/sbox.rs give it away, main at 0x41bea0 is just the lang_start trampoline real logic sits in sub_41a0c0 which drops into the verification orchestrator sub_418a10 running all 12 layers with bitwise AND accumulation no early exits, layers 1-3 are RDTSC delta and clock_gettime CLOCK_MONOTONIC anti-debug gates, 4-5-6 enforce the 28-char [A-Z0-9_] format with underscores pinned at positions 10/15/23 last 4 digits only and ASCII sum exactly 1901, identified the core hash at sub_433b80 as SipHash-2-4 from the init vectors 0x736f6d6570736575 0x646f72616e646f6d 0x6c7967656e657261 0x7465646279746573 aka "somepseudorandomlygeneratedbytes" with rotation constants 13/32/16/21/17/32 two rounds per block four at finalization, the actual crack comes from Layer 10 which splits the key into four 7-byte segments each hashed with independent k0/k1 pairs reducing the search space from 36^24 down to 4x36^6 roughly 2^33 which is the single architectural weakness in the design, brute-forced the last 4 digits first against Layer 6s YEARHASH/KEY01020 keys in 10K iterations got 2026 then segment 4 in 1.3K then segments 2 and 3 each in ~2.2B iterations then segment 1 with sum-constraint pruning total 55 seconds single core, validated against all remaining layers including the full-key SipHash triplet layers 7/8/9 with three different key pairs and the polynomial evaluation through MurmurHash3 fmix64 at five prime evaluation points all passed clean, key is PR0M3TH3U5_F1R3_ST34L3R_2026, I have a full writeup sitting around too lazy to format it properly but if anyone wants I can publish it

I would appreciate a full writeup! Also, please consider publishing your solve to crackmes.one, where the author cross-posted this challenge.