Time to time, I hand out Cobalt Strike license keys to non-customers. Sometimes these are to support an event (e.g., the National CCDC Red Team). Other times, these license keys allow a potential customer to evaluate Cobalt Strike without the deliberate tells present in the trial.

Cobalt Strike’s license key is primarily used with the built-in update program. My server uses this key to verify that you’re still licensed to use the Cobalt Strike product and receive updates for it.

The built-in update program asks for this key once. Afterwards, it does not ask for this key again.

This presents a small problem. ☺ When you go from evaluator to customer, you’ll want to remove your evaluation key. If you don’t, Cobalt Strike will continue to use this key instead of the one tied to your license. Once that key expires, you can’t update Cobalt Strike or access the Cobalt Strike Arsenal.

With all that out of the way, let’s get to the question that prompted this post. How do you reset your Cobalt Strike License Key? Easy.

Cobalt Strike stores your license key in the .cobaltstrike.license file in your home directory. Simply remove this file and the update program will ask you for a new key when you run it next.

rm –f ~/.cobaltstrike.license

That’s it!