GrrCon 2012 Talk - The Realm of Third Generation Botnet Attacks

(Pentest Apache #1) Exposed Apache Axis - SOAP Objects

Recently, I was doing some open research. On compromising the Tomcat Apache Manager component, I came across Apache Axis.

Apache Axis2™ is a Web Services / SOAP / WSDL engine, the successor to the widely used Apache Axis SOAP stack. There are two implementations of the Apache Axis2 Web services engine - Apache Axis2/Java and Apache Axis2/C

Fore more information about Apache Axis, refer here :

• http://axis.apache.org/axis2/java/core/
• http://axis.apache.org/axis/ 

It is highly advised that while conducting penetration tests (web + network), one should dig deeper to find exposed Apache Axis objects on the target servers. Primarily, misconfigured Apache web servers (Tomcat) results in exposed SOAP objects used for implementing Apache Axis services engine.

What to look for?

1. Default happyaxis.jsp: This file provides plethora of information about the configured web services on the target server. It leverages configuration as follows:

• Examining web application configuration (Needed + Optional Configuration)
• Examining application server
• Examining system properties

2. Axis Servlet (/servlet/AxisServlet): It leverages information about the deployed web services on the
target server.

3. Echo Headers (/EchoHeaders.jws): This component calls the local endpoints to reveal HTTP headers.

For more information about JWS file, refer: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E13226_01/workshop/docs70/help/guide/devenv/conJwsFiles.html

3.1 If method name is not specified (EchoHeaders.jws?method=), it results in exception as follows:

3.2 If method name is specified (EchoHeaders.jws?method=list), it provides results as follows:

3.3 Call WSDL directory (EchoHeaders.jws?wsdl) it provides results as follows:

4. Traverse the exposed WSDL Endpoints listed by the Axis Servlet (/servlet/AxisServlet).

By default, Administer Axis and SOAP Monitor component is disabled. But, the above presented information still helps the attacker to get the configuration of the target server.

So use Google Dorks, analyze manually by provided information in this blog to detect exposed Apache Axis SOAP objects.

Enjoy!

Art of InfoJacking Talk at Source Seattle - 2011

My talk at Source Seattle 2011.

LayerOne 2012 Talk - Mangling with Botnets

My talk at LayerOne 2012 conference.

FreeBSD Jails - Routing Issues and Nmap Scanning - NPT

Recently I was using FreeBSD system for Network Penetration Testing (NPT). For better control, jails are implemented in FreeBSD. Jails are nothing but a replacement of chroot environment. For better understanding of Jails in FreeBSD, read  here - http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/jails-intro.html.

Target -  9.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE #0:  amd64

When you are performing NPT using FreeBSD, you might encounter the something similar that I am discussing below

1. FreeBSD fails to provide routing information. Commands such as "netstat -r" | "netstat -rn" fails.

john# netstat -r
netstat: kvm not available: /dev/mem: No such file or directory
Routing tables
rt_tables: symbol not in namelist
john# netstat -rn
netstat: kvm not available: /dev/mem: No such file or directory
Routing tables
rt_tables: symbol not in namelist

 2. Traceroute command works perfectly fine and provides desired results.

 john# traceroute google.com
traceroute: Warning: google.com has multiple addresses; using 74.125.224.226
traceroute to google.com (74.125.224.226), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  206.125.172.17 (206.125.172.17)  2.733 ms  0.958 ms  0.864 ms
 2  ge0-15.as01.lax07.mzima.net (67.199.135.101)  5.611 ms  0.684 ms  1.295 ms
 3  google.com.any2ix.coresite.com (206.223.143.41)  0.728 ms  0.702 ms  0.652 m
 4  72.14.234.47 (72.14.234.47)  0.716 ms
    64.233.174.41 (64.233.174.41)  0.747 ms  0.774 ms
 5  216.239.43.76 (216.239.43.76)  0.976 ms  1.042 ms  0.959 ms
 6  lax04s08-in-f2.1e100.net (74.125.224.226)  0.745 ms  0.652 ms  0.726 ms

3. Dig works fine and DNS names are resolved.

john# dig google.com +nocmd +short
74.125.224.232
74.125.224.224
74.125.224.226
74.125.224.228
74.125.224.238
74.125.224.231
74.125.224.227
74.125.224.229
74.125.224.230
74.125.224.225
74.125.224.233

3. Nmap does not trigger several set of scans on FreeBSD due to jails implementation. Primarily, in
    my case Syn scan fails.

The overall problem is present in the support for raw sockets in FreeBSD when jails are implemented. By default, the support for raw sockets is not provided in jails because of security issues. The configuration parameter "security.jail.allow_raw_sockets" in sysctl.conf is the controlling agent. If the value is changed to "1", the raw sockets support is allowed.

I encountered errors related to "devfs" system. The jails, from where I was executing the scans did not support /dev/mem or /dev/kmem. Typically, I found that jail failed to find kvm. The solution is to provide access to critical sections of the memory to that specific jail. This can be done by making modifications in "/etc/devfs.rules". It means inside the jail, the user can access the all the sections of memory ( bypassing jail restrictions). Being an administrator, no body prefers to do that as it is not a best practice to grant users the root level access to control all sections of memory. This kind of scenarios lead to some management issues though for administrators.

Now the question is, if certain set of Nmap scans wont work what to do. No doubt, running scans in jail environment restricts some of the features of Nmap but we can still use (-sT) TCP connect scan to initiate scanning. Though it is time consuming as it is full three way handshake as compared to (-sS) which is two way but it works without any hassles. You have to make the (-sT) scan minimal which means even this scan does not work with other options in Nmap. You have to run it more simple way as discussed in some examples below.

john# nmap -Pn -vv -n -sT -O -A xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -oA first_subnet

Starting Nmap 6.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2012-06-01 21:53 UTC

NSE: Loaded 93 scripts for scanning.

NSE: Script Pre-scanning.

NSE: Starting runlevel 1 (of 2) scan.

NSE: Starting runlevel 2 (of 2) scan.

nexthost: failed to determine route to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx QUITTING!

john# nmap -Pn -vv -n -sT -O -A xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Starting Nmap 6.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2012-06-01 21:53 UTC

NSE: Loaded 93 scripts for scanning.

NSE: Script Pre-scanning.

NSE: Starting runlevel 1 (of 2) scan.

NSE: Starting runlevel 2 (of 2) scan.

nexthost: failed to determine route to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx QUITTING!

So what works in this case is as follows

john# nmap -Pn -sT -sV google.com -p 80

Starting Nmap 6.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2012-06-04 00:23 UTC
Nmap scan report for google.com (74.125.224.229)
Host is up (0.00080s latency).
Other addresses for google.com (not scanned): 74.125.224.228 74.125.224.232 74.125.224.231 74.125.224.233 74.125.224.230 74.125.224.224 74.125.224.238 74.125.224.227
 74.125.224.225 74.125.224.226
rDNS record for 74.125.224.229: lax04s08-in-f5.1e100.net
PORT   STATE SERVICE VERSION
80/tcp open  http    Google httpd 2.0 (GFE)
Service Info: OS: Linux; CPE: cpe:/o:linux:kernel
So the point to be considered while doing penetration testing is to take care for these situations. Even though there is restricted environment but we can still achieve what we want.

Hope it helps.

Traversing Trace.axd and Miconfiguration Glitch

Recently, I was going through attack research's blog post on trace.axd. Refer here http://carnal0wnage.attackresearch.com/2012/05/from-low-to-pwned-12-traceaxd.html. The information present in trace files is always important and sometimes reap additional benefits from pen tester's perspective. There is some additional info I want to add because of misconfiguration in web server setup. Some simple information but worth while.

During my testing, I have seen that redirection misconfiguration of port 80  to port 443 including path entries can cause serious implications. I am taking a simple example of trace.axd. Triggering a google dork as (inurl:trace filetype:axd site:com),  results in several targets. Here is an interesting case study.

1. On accessing through browsers, the target results in following information

The response headers are:

(Status-Line)    HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
Cache-Control    private
Content-Type    text/html; charset=utf-8
Server    Microsoft-IIS/7.5
X-AspNet-Version    2.0.50727
X-Powered-By    ASP.NET
Date    Wed, 30 May 2012 18:41:24 GMT
Content-Length    2062

 The metasploit  produces the similar result.

2. This is not an end. Due to inappropriate configuration, the server can be accessed over HTTPS. Really, let's see.

The response headers for this request are

(Status-Line)    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Cache-Control    private
Content-Type    text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Encoding    gzip
Vary    Accept-Encoding
Server    Microsoft-IIS/7.5
X-AspNet-Version    2.0.50727
X-Powered-By    ASP.NET
Date    Wed, 30 May 2012 18:40:59 GMT
Content-Length    1322

In reality, the misconfiguration results in different results. By default, the content should not be allowed over both ports or similar error message should be displayed.

Use metasploit auxiliary module to extract all information or surf directly through browser.

The overall aim is to check all the entry points while doing penetration testing. 

Enjoy !

Responsible Disclosure - XSS in ZScaler Gateway Application

Updated: I mentioned this issue to the Securityweek's author Steve Regan after reading his story here: http://www.securityweek.com/zscaler-accused-throwing-stones-glass-house-over-xss-vulnerability. He
quoted this blog past as an addition to the story.

Some of the XSS bugs were responsibly disclosed to the security team at ZScaler. Thanks to Michael Sutton for responding quickly. The vulnerability is patched now.

Proof of Concept is here:

We stick to responsible disclosure to build the community more secure.

Enjoy !

McAfee or is it Mcaf.ee - Interesting !

Update: Seems like a legitimate service by McAfee. The geek-mode functionality  raised a suspicion. Thanks to anonymous for pointing this out.

I was looking for some interesting malware samples and came across with hilarious but rogue domain using McAfee name. It is actually a URL shortening service hosted on this domain. If you want to try, do it here by clicking this http://mcaf.ee.

Typically, the shortening and expansion process work as presented below

mcaf.ee~>  s http://www.google.com
> The shortened url is >> http://mcaf.ee/f1cd29 << [Copy]
mcaf.ee~> e http://mcaf.ee/f1cd29 > The expanded url is >> http://www.google.com << [Copy]
mcaf.ee~>
   
Following URL's are accessed by this service for primary actions.

[1] hxxp://mcaf.ee/api/shorten?callback=jsonp1337557363223&input_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com

[2] hxxpp://mcaf.ee/assets/ZeroClipboard10.swf

The analysis of ZeroClipboard10.swf is present here : http://jsunpack.jeek.org/?report=5c4bf5f21ec4870d16e89e9d8f32bee124a8344b

Other interesting links are as follows:

hxxp://mcaf.ee/config?geekmode=1
hxxp://mcaf.ee/js/geek.js

The domain still up as for now. You might want to take a look :)

Fun Hacking - Story of WiFi Airbox Cellular Routers

I am always curious to know more about the new network devices such WiFi routers. So I started hitting at it. Basically, mobile WiFi provides default access to internet connection. I pushed my device to be in the network.

1. A quick IP lookup provided me with the IP address of the mobile WiFi router present in the

2. The very basic thing is to surf the web admin console which by default provides the basic HTTP authentication prompt. At this point, I got to have the details of the mobile WiFi router. So I quickly issued [ echo "GET / HTTP/1.0" | nc 192.168.100.1] to extract the HTTP response from the running web server that was used for administration. Unfortunately, it was not giving any reply. That's fine.

3. A quick scan leveraged that port 81 was opened. So I fired the web browser to see if something was there for me on port 81.The port displayed the following web page

 

Yeah, that's more than the information I wanted. The mobile WiFi router was AIRBOX cellular designed by waav.com. Additionally, port 53 was also opened for DNS querying but that was not the target point.

4. So, the next step was to download the manual of this WiFi router. I did and carefully read it. As common, the airbox router use to have  default credentials. Look at the excerpt from the AIRBOX manual :http://waav.com/AirBox_Manual_V2.5.pdf.

 

5. Based on this information, I build the password list and also used the standard password lists to brute force the account. Within a few seconds. I got the admin interface password. If you are lucky, you will find default credentials present on these routers. Security is always creepy for these devices. I always look for the DHCP leases to find out the number of devices that are connected to the router. As said, I did the same

 So the lesson is, we need to delve more into security.

Android Emulator - Pentesting - Encountered Errors

The "INSTALL_FAILED_MISSING_SHARED_LIBRARY" is a very common problem which is encountered normally in day to day operations. This error is legitimately thrown by the android emulator when a new application is forced to install for testing purposes.

This error is an outcome of inappropriate selection of Android API or Google API. The application might require either of the API's. If your Android Virtual Device (AVD) is build to use one of it , you are going to face this problem.

For example: let's have a look at this emulator



and now we want to install, anti toolkit on it which results in following error



The next step, we tried this -



The result is as expected



Always provide appropriate partition size for AVD to avoid any stringency while testing.

Hacking Cradle Point Routers - Obscurity at the Peak

Cradle-point wireless routers are used heavily for setting small networks. However, Cradle-point uses interesting MAC specific authentication credentials which are unique for every router because of the MAC address uniqueness. In general, Cradle-point opts this behavior in order to provide more entropy in the authentication scheme rather depending on default password mechanism, which most of the LAN/WLAN router uses.

Cradle-point uses last six characters of MAC address for authentication by default. Well, in general it seems interesting because it looks like things are more secure. However, this is not appropriate from security point of view. For administrative logins and user authentication for the first time, a login page is displayed that looks for internet access password.

The question is; How to get the password for unmanaged routers? Well, it is in MAC address. However, the obscure part is, once you are inside a WLAN , you are already having an IP address. It means Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is the key that maps the network layer address (IP) to the link layer(Ethernet/MAC). The login page looks like as follows



The designers made a mistake in setting this type of layout because in order to get the administrative webpage, the client has to connect to the network if it is active. Right!. Yes it is. Once a user activates the wireless connection it gets connected to the same WLAN which has a gateway address of 192.168.0.1 (default for Cradle-point routers). It is hilarious but it is trivial to subvert the stuff to get the password. Now, the hacker is in the network, so we can get possible ARP entry which resolute the IP address to the MAC address (simply ping the gateway) for the router.



As per the documentation, the password has to be 071640. Let’s try



So ..........



Configure your devices in a secure manner.

Virus Bulletin - Talk

Check out my virus bulletin talk - http://www.virusbtn.com/conference/vb2011/590oYHwdzKZp/abstracts/Sood.xml