Bandit Level 10-11
This time, the file contains base64 encoded text and we have to decompile it. The obvious choice is to use the base64 command (once again, shocker).
base64 data.txt
output: VkdobElIQmhjM04zYjNKa0lHbHpJRWxHZFd0M1MwZHpSbGM0VFU5eE0wbFNSbkZ5ZUVVeGFIaFVU a1ZpVlZCU0NnPT0K
When we compare the output with previous flags, we can see that it is obviously not the answer - it is too long.
If we read the man, it turns out that we tried to turn the base64 text into base64 text once again.
What we have to do, is run it with the -d flag to decompile it.
base64 -d data.txt
output: The password is IFukwKGsFW8MOq3IRFqrxE1hxTNEbUPR
We can easily check my previous statement in practise. If we run the following command, we can see that the output will be the same as previously.
base64 data.txt | base64 -d | base64 -d