VM Licence and Safety Notice

Last updated: 4 September 2026

This notice covers the downloadable Active Directory lab environments ("Labs") sold or given away by Hacker Blueprint, whether you obtained them through Buy Me a Coffee, a bundle, a group licence, or a free release. It is part of our Terms of Service. By downloading or running a Lab you accept it.

1. What a Lab is

Each Lab is a small, deliberately vulnerable Windows Active Directory network delivered as virtual machine images (OVA files) plus any supporting notes. A typical chain contains a domain controller and two client machines configured to be attacked in a specific sequence. Labs are built to mirror the kind of environment you meet in certification exams and in authorised engagements.

Labs are intentionally insecure. They contain weak passwords, misconfigurations and exploitable software on purpose. Treat them as hostile.

2. Your licence

We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to download, run and modify the Lab on hardware you control, for your own learning and for teaching within a group licence you hold.

You may not:

• share, upload, torrent, mirror, resell or otherwise redistribute the Lab files or any images derived from them, in whole or in part;
• host a Lab for other people to access, whether free or paid, unless we have agreed a group licence in writing;
• publish full solutions, walkthroughs or videos of a paid Lab without our written permission (see section 2.1 for what is fine to share);
• remove or alter licence notices, credits or markers inside the Lab.

Free Labs are licensed on the same terms. "Free" means no charge; it does not mean public domain.

2.1 Videos, write-ups and walkthroughs

• Free Labs. You may publish videos, write-ups and full walkthroughs of any free Lab. Please link back to hackerblueprint.com so others can get the Lab from the source.
• Paid Labs. Contact us before you publish. Email hacking.academy@protonmail.com or message us on Discord and tell us what you plan to post. Short write-ups of your own learning that do not reveal the complete attack chain are fine without asking. Anything more needs our written permission first, so paying students keep getting the full challenge.

3. Third-party software inside the Labs

Labs include operating systems and tools that we do not own. That software remains the property of its respective owners and is governed by their own licence terms, not ours. Labs are provided solely for non-production, educational use on hardware you control. Hacker Blueprint is not affiliated with or endorsed by any software vendor whose products appear in a Lab.

4. Safety: how to run a Lab

Run Labs only in an isolated environment. At a minimum:

1. Network isolation. Attach all Lab VMs to a host-only or internal virtual network with no route to the internet or to your home or office LAN. Never bridge a Lab VM to a physical network.
2. Snapshots. Take a snapshot of each VM before you start so you can reset it.
3. No production data. Do not put real credentials, real documents or anything you care about on a Lab VM.
4. Keep your host patched. Your hypervisor and host operating system should be up to date. The VMs are vulnerable by design; your host should not be.
5. Verify your download. Where we publish a checksum for a Lab, compare it before you import the OVA. If it does not match, do not run it and contact us.
6. Delete when done if you no longer need the Lab, or keep it isolated.

Some Lab machines contain real exploitable services. Exposing them to a network you do not fully control could allow someone else to compromise them, and from there your host or network.

5. Where you may point the techniques

Everything you learn in a Lab is subject to the Acceptable Use Policy. The Lab is the target. Your own systems, or systems you have written permission to test, are the only other targets.

6. Support and updates

We provide help with Labs through the Discord community and by email. We update Labs from time to time; how you get updates is described on the product page for that Lab (usually by contacting us with proof of purchase). We do not promise that a Lab will work on every hypervisor or hardware configuration. Minimum requirements are listed on the Labs page.

7. No warranty and your responsibility

Labs are provided "as is". They are experimental, deliberately broken environments. To the extent the law allows, we are not responsible for any damage to your hardware, software, data or network that results from running a Lab, from failing to isolate it, or from using techniques learned in it against any other system. Your statutory consumer rights are not affected.

8. Questions

Email hacking.academy@protonmail.com or ask in the Discord community.