Seventeen - CTF Challenge Writeup

Challenge Information

Name: Seventeen
Category: Misc
Points: 10
Objective: Unzip a series of recursively compressed ZIP files, collect password fragments from each layer, and use the final combined password to extract the flag.

From User Sixteen, we’re presented with a challenge that involves unzipping layered ZIP files — a total of 10 layers deep.
Each ZIP file is named with a 3-character password: either all lowercase, all uppercase, or all numbers.
Without access to GPT, scripting this was difficult, so I ended up doing most of the layers manually.
At each level, the ZIP would extract into another ZIP, and inside each, a snippet of the final password was hidden.
After collecting all the snippets across the 10 layers, I combined them into a single string, which served as the password to unlock the final ZIP file containing the flag.

SHERPACTF25{Cr4ck_z1p5_3zpz}