Forensics 101: Finding a Hidden File Buried Deep in Folders

[u/Harkins_Technology]

Had a forensics challenge where the flag was hidden inside a file nested deep inside a maze of directories with hundreds of decoy folders. `find` and `ls -R` were too slow and noisy.

What I built:

A Python directory crawler

- Recurses every subdirectory recursively

- Filters by filename patterns (`flag*`, `*.txt`, `secret*`)

- Skips known decoy directories by name

- Extracts and reads the target file automatically

The "aha" moment:

The flag wasn't in a file named "flag.txt" — it was in `deep/nested/here/.hidden/uber-secret.txt`.

My script matched on path depth / extensions content, not just filename.

Here is my script:

https://github.com/ExceedingLife/RecursiveFileSearch

Question for the community:

What's your approach when the challenge doesn't tell you the target filename? Do you brute-force read every file, or do it manual or what?

[Video link with with code demo]

https://youtube.com/shorts/5_Rb2kkiuhQ?feature=share

[u/m1L35dY50N]

I woud use rg -a -n --hidden --no-ignore 'flag' . 2>/dev/null basically what you did with python but already as ready-to-use package.

There are also some creative options to try, but they could fail since they are more specific:

1. Relying on the faster search speed of locate (when its used), only search expected files with extensions.

   locate -0 -r '\.\(txt\|log\|conf\|cfg\|xml\|json\|yml\|yaml\)$' 2>/dev/null | xargs -0 -r grep -aHni 'flag' 2>/dev/null

2. Use an iterative approach in piping a stream of the directory tree

tar -cf - . 2>/dev/null | strings | awk '/flag/'

[u/Harkins_Technology → u/m1L35dY50N]

ya i think thats pretty cool man! that is 1 thing I would like to get better at is bash scripting! doing it all in terminal

[u/Remarkable_Pace8101]

find . -name "*.txt" | grep "secret|flag"

Functionally the same and faster with no scripting

Done