Level goal

The password for the next level is stored in the file data.txt in one of the few human-readable strings, preceded by several ‘=’ characters.

Login

ssh bandit9@bandit.labs.overthewire.org -p 2220
4CKMh1JI91bUIZZPXDqGanal4xvAg0JM

Doc

strings (1)          - print the sequences of printable characters in files
grep (1)             - print lines that match patterns

Solution

Use strings to only recieve the string values out of the text file, pipe it to grep using “=” as the pattern you are searching for. 

bandit9@bandit:~$ strings data.txt | grep =
=aA"f
\a!;========== the
PWAF=1
	 M),\}=
2Y6=
G';?e=
========== passwordf
========== isc
*=N6
m=</
E=Bty
=sw	
"M1=
========== FGUW5ilLVJrxX9kMYMmlN4MgbpfMiqey
!&=u&4$
*XA=