// Hidden in Plain Sight

A leaked draft image is hiding two independent flags — one in the pixels, one in the metadata.

// Download

Leaked Draft Image A PNG that leaked before its review was finished

// Your Toolbox

exiftool Reads (and writes) embedded metadata — always check this first on any leaked file.
zsteg / stegsolve Purpose-built LSB-steganography scanners for PNG/BMP images.
A few lines of Python (Pillow) LSB data is just the last bit of each pixel channel — trivial to read yourself once you know that.

// Situation

This PNG leaked from an internal review queue before it was supposed to go out. Nothing about the image itself looks unusual at a glance — that's the point. Two independent pieces of hidden information are in this single file, using two completely different techniques. Finding one tells you nothing about how to find the other.

// The Challenges

01 easy

Check What Shipped With It

Files carry more than what you see rendered on screen. Every export tool, camera, and editor tends to leave something behind in the file's metadata — sometimes a lot more than intended.

Target file: network_topology_draft.png
02 medium

Look Past the Pixels

The image itself is hiding a message in its least significant bits — the part of each pixel's color value that changes the color so slightly the human eye can't tell the difference, but a script can read perfectly.

Target file: network_topology_draft.png