hunter-crypto-7b/README.md

---
license: apache-2.0
license_link: https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen2.5-Coder-7B-Instruct/blob/main/LICENSE
base_model: Qwen/Qwen2.5-Coder-7B-Instruct
language:
- en
library_name: mlx
pipeline_tag: text-generation
tags:
  - cryptography
  - security
  - ctf
  - offensive-security
  - mlx
  - qlora
  - qwen-coder
---

# hunter-crypto-7b

**A local cryptography-attack specialist for authorized security work, by [Naderu](https://naderu.com) — a BytesBrains Pte. Ltd. venture.**

`hunter-crypto` is a compact, specialised model for the **cryptography corner** of penetration
testing and CTF work: given a challenge — a cipher, a weak-parameter RSA key, an oracle — it
identifies the weakness and produces a **runnable attack script** (PyCryptodome / SageMath) that
recovers the plaintext or flag. It runs **fully offline on Apple Silicon**, so engagement data never
leaves the box. It is the first model of the **Hunter** family.

- **Fine-tuned from:** [`Qwen/Qwen2.5-Coder-7B-Instruct`](https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen2.5-Coder-7B-Instruct) (Apache-2.0)
- **Method:** QLoRA (r=8, scale=20) on a 4-bit MLX quant, assistant-tokens-only, 1000 iters, MLX on Apple Silicon
- **This artifact:** merged **bf16** weights (adapter fused into the base, de-quantized)
- **Full provenance, recipe, and eval harness:** [github.com/nandal/naderu](https://github.com/nandal/naderu) — `models/hunter-crypto/`

## Intended use

A **local specialist** behind an **authorized** pentest / CTF workflow, handling the cryptography
corner offline: recovering plaintext/flags from **cryptographically weak or misconfigured**
constructions during authorized testing, CTF competition, and security education.

> **Authorized use only.** This model is for authorized penetration testing, defensive security, and
> CTF/education. It is **not** for attacking systems you do not have explicit permission to test. It
> targets weak/misconfigured crypto for assessment; it is not a tool for defeating properly-deployed
> modern cryptography, and does not claim to.

**Out of scope:** general chat, factual Q&A, non-crypto exploitation, and any use requiring
guaranteed correctness. Its output is a *candidate* attack to be run and verified, not an authority.

## The task contract

Given a challenge (description + material: ciphertext, public parameters, an oracle interface,
source), the model returns (1) a short identification of the weakness, and (2) a single runnable
script that, when executed against the provided material, prints the recovered plaintext/flag.

## Evaluation

Graded by end-to-end execution — the model's script must run and print the known secret (no partial
credit) — over a frozen held-out set verified disjoint from training. Base = the 4-bit Qwen2.5-Coder
base with no adapter; trained = this model.

| Tier | Metric | Gate | Base | **Trained** |
|------|--------|------|------|-------------|
| In-distribution (48, six trained categories) | solve_rate | ≥0.95 → **PASS** | 0.333 | **1.000** |
| In-distribution (48) | valid_script_rate | ≥0.95 → **PASS** | 0.333 | **1.000** |
| Independent-method (36, different generator) | solve_rate | reported | 0.250 | **0.972** |
| OOD-hard (24, untrained RSA attacks) | solve_rate | non-gating | 0.000 | 0.125 |

Trained categories (all maxed on the in-distribution tier): `xor1`, `xorK`, `caesar`, `affine`,
`base_chain`, `rsa_low_e`. The independent-method result (0.972 on a set built by a *different*
generator with varied encodings/labels/parameters) is the signal that the model learned the attacks,
not just the training generator's surface templates. Full breakdown:
[`models/hunter-crypto/benchmarks.md`](https://github.com/nandal/naderu/blob/main/models/hunter-crypto/benchmarks.md).

## Limitations, risks & safety

- **Small, narrow model.** It proposes attacks for *weak* crypto; it is not a cryptanalysis engine
  and will be wrong on hard or out-of-distribution problems (see OOD tier). Always run and verify.
- **No guarantee of correctness or safety of generated code — run generated scripts in a sandbox.**
- **Dual-use.** Crypto-attack capability is inherently dual-use; scope is authorized assessment of
  weak/misconfigured crypto, shipped as one corner of a human-consent-gated workflow.

## License

Apache-2.0, inheriting `Qwen/Qwen2.5-Coder-7B-Instruct`'s upstream terms.