Hack the Box Carrier: Walkthrough

Today we are going to solve another CTF challenge “Carrier”. It is a retired vulnerable lab presented by Hack the Box for helping pentester’s to perform online penetration testing according to your experience level; they have a collection of vulnerable labs as challenges, from beginners to Expert level.

Level: Expert

Task: To find user.txt and root.txt file

Note: Since these labs are online available therefore they have a static IP. The IP of Carrier is 10.10.10.105

Penetrating Methodology

  • Network scanning (Nmap)
  • Enumerating SNMP service port (161)
  • Surfing HTTPS service port (80)
  • Logging in through the Web portal
  • Finding command injection in web application
  • Getting reverse shell
  • Finding the first flag.
  • Finding Border Gateway Protocol
  • Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Hijacking
  • Capturing FTP credentials
  • Logging in through SSH
  • Finding final flag

Walkthrough

Let’s start off with our basic Nmap command to find out the open ports and services.

The Nmap scan shows us that there are 3 TCP ports are open: 21(FTP), 22(SSH), 80(HTTP) and 1 UDP port is open: 161(SNMP)

As port 161 is open we use snmpwalk to enumerate SNMP port and find a string called “SN#NET_45JDX23”.

As port 80 is open, we open the web services in the browser and we find a login page.

We try username “admin” and the string we find earlier as the password. But were unable to login but by using the password “NET_45JDX23”, we were able to login.

By checking the different options in the web application, in the diagnostic tab, we find something interesting. When we click on the “Verify status” button, we find that the server might be running “ps” command.

So further enumerate the web application, we use BurpSuite to capture the request and find inside the “check” parameter a base64 encoded string. When we decode the base64 encoded string we find the string to be called “quagga”. Now if check the web application, it is showing all the process that contains the string “quagga”. So that means the web application is running “ps” with “grep quagga” command.

Now to verify our theory, we change the check parameter to “root” and then encode it to base64 and then encode it to URL encode.

When we send the new request we find that the web application is displaying all the process that contains the string “root”.

Now we check if the web application is vulnerable to command injection or not. We try to run id command on the server.

By changing the parameter to “hack;id” and then encoding it with base64 encode and URL encode we forward the request to the server.

When we check the web application, we find that we are successfully able to run the “id” command that means the web application is vulnerable to command injection.

Now we replace the id command with nc reverse shell one-liner.

We encode the string with base64 encode and URL encode. We setup our listener and then forward the request.

As soon as we forward the request we get a reverse shell, we spawn a TTY shell and check for files in the current directory. Inside we find a file called “user.txt”, we open the file and find the first flag.

After getting a root shell we enumerated the machine, we do not find anything interesting. Going back to the tickets section on the web page, we find a hint that we need to check another subnet.

We use the ping command to find all the available machines on the subnet “10.120.15.0/24”.

Now we according to the ticket we know there is ftp server running on subnet “10.120.15.0/24”. So we scan both the IP addresses and find port 21 is open on 10.120.15.10. Further enumerating the system in cronjob we find that there is a bash script inside /opt/ directory called “restore.sh”. We take a look at the content of the file and find that the machine is working with Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) with Quagga. Now we can use a technique called BGP hijacking to take over the IP address. The bash script restores the BGP configuration every 10 minutes, so we remove executable permissions from the script so that we can make changes to the configuration of BGP

Now we connect to the vty shell and check the current configuration.

Now switch to configure mode, and to intercept the traffic we want 10.120.15.0/25 to use our machine as the gateway.

If we check our BGP routes we find that our machines will be used as a gateway.

Now we will start collecting packets on port 21 using tcpdump, we will be using the interface eth2.

We wait for some time then interrupt the capture and check if the pcap file has been created. Now we transfer the file to our system and analyze it with Wireshark and find the password for FTP.

Password: BGPtelc0routing

We use this password to login through SSH on the target system and are successfully able to login. After logging in, we find a file called root.txt, we take a look at the content of the file and find the final flag.

Author: Sayantan Bera is a technical writer at hacking articles and cybersecurity enthusiast. Contact Here

Command & Control Tool: Pupy

In this article, we will learn to exploit Windows, Linux and Android with pupy command and control tool.

Table of Content :

  • Introduction
  • Installation
  • Windows Exploitation
  • Windows Post Exploitation
  • Linux Exploitation
  • Linux Post Exploitation
  • Android Exploitation
  • Android Post Exploitation

Introduction

Pupy is a cross-platform, post exploitation tool as well as a multi-function RAT. It’s written in python which makes it very convenient. It also has low detectability that’s why it’s a great tool for the red team.  Pupy can communicate using multiple transports, migrate into processes using reflective injection, and load remote python code, python packages and python C-extensions from memory.

It uses a reflected DLL to load python interpreter from memory which is great as nothing will be shown in the disk. It doesn’t have any special dependencies. It can also migrate into other processes. The communication protocols of pupy are modular and stackable. It can execute non-interactive commands on multiple hosts at once. All the interactive shells can be accessed remotely.

Installation

To install pupy execute the following commands one by one :

Now download all the requirements using pip like the following command :

Now run pupy using the following command :

This command will open the prompt where you will get your session.

Now, to create our payload we will use the pupygen. Use the following help command to see all the attributes which we can use :

Windows Exploitation

Now we will create a windows payload in order to exploit windows with the following command :

Here,

-O : refers to the operating system

-A : refers to the architecture

-o : refers to the output file path

When you are successful in executing the shell.exe in the victims’ PC, you will have your session as shown in the image :

Windows Post Exploitation

Further, there are number of post-exploits you can use, they are pretty simple to use. Some of them we have shown in our article. For message dialogue box to pop up on the target machine you can use the following command :

As per the command, following dialogue box will open on the target machine :

You can also access the desktop using the remote desktop module with the following command :

After executing the above command you can remotely access the desktop just as shown in the image below :

For bypass UAC, we have the simplest command in pupy i.e. the following :

The above command will recreate a session with admin privileges as shown in the image below :

Then for getting the system’s credentials, you can use the following command :

And as you can see in the image below, you get the information about all the credentials :

Using pupy, we can also migrate our session to a particular process. With migrate command, the attributes of the command are shown in the image below :

With ps command, you can find out the process ID number of all the processes running on the target PC, along with letting you know which process is running. Knowing the process ID is important as it will be required in the migrate command and will help us to migrate our session as we desire.

Now, as we know the processes that are running, we can use it to migrate our session. For this, type the following command :

And then a new session will be created as desired.

Linux Exploitation

To exploit Linux, we will have to generate Linux payload with the following command :

Once you execute the malicious file in the target system, you will have your session as shown in the image below :

As you have a session now, you can check if the target machine is running on a VM or is it a host machine with the following command :

And as you can see in the image below that the target machine is, in fact, running on VM

Linux Post Exploitation

In post-exploitation, you can have detailed information about the target system with the following command :

With pupy, you can also find out all the exploits that are working on the target system with the help of the following command :

As you can see that in the image below, it has given us the list of all the exploits to which the target system is vulnerable.

To get the basic information about the target system such as IP address, MAC address, etc. you can use the following command :

Android Exploitation

Now we will create an android payload in order to exploit windows with the following command :

When you are successful in installing the shell.apk in the victims’ Android Phone, you will have your session as shown in the image :

Android Post Exploitation

In post-exploitation, you can grab the call logs stored on the target device with the following command :

Here,

-a : refers to getting all the call details

-output-folder : refers to the path of the output file containing the call logs

We will use the cat command on callDetails.txt to read the call logs.

To get the camera snap from the primary camera on the target device, you can use the following command :

Here,

-v : refers to view the image directly

As we can see in the given image that we have the snap captured and stored at the given location.

To get the information about the installed packages or apps on the target device, you can use the following command :

Here,

-a : refers to getting all the installed packages details

-d : refers to view detailed information

As we can see in the given image that we have detailed information about the packages or apps installed on the target machine.

Author: Sayantan Bera is a technical writer at hacking articles and cybersecurity enthusiast. Contact Here

Multiple Ways to Exploiting OSX using PowerShell Empire

In this article, we will learn multiple ways to how to hack OS X using empire. There are various stagers given in empire for the same and we use a few of them in our article. Method to attack OS X is similar to that of windows. For the beginner’s guide to pen-test OS X click here.

Table of Content :

  • osx/macho
  • osx/applescript
  • osx/launcher
  • osx/jar
  • osx/safari_launcher

osx/macho

The first stager we will use to attack is osx/macho. This stager will create a Mach-O file, which is an executable format of binaries in OS X. This file format is made for OS X specifically. This file format informs the system about the order in which code and data are read into memory. So, this stager is quite useful when it comes to attacking OS X.

The listener creation is the same as windows, use the http listener. Once the listener is created, execute the following set of commands:

As the shell.macho is executed in the victim’s PC, you will have your session as shown in the image below :

osx/applescript

The next stager we will use is osx/applescript. This stager will create a code in an apple script, this script has an automated control over scriptable Mac applications as its dedicated script for Mac. Therefore, it’s an important stager for pen-testing Mac. To create the malicious said apple script run the following set of commands :

Executing the above stager will create a code, run this code in the targeted system as it is shown in the following image :

As soon as the code is executed in the victim’s PC, you will have your session as shown in the image :

osx/launcher

The next stager we will use is osx/launcher. This stager is most commonly used. To execute this stager, run the following commands :

copy this code and run it in the target system’s shell. Now as soon as the code is executed, you will have your session as shown in the image below :

osx/jar

The nest stager which we will use is osx/jar. This stager creates a jar file which is a Java archive file. This file format is used for compressed java files which when extracted as run as desired. This file extension is specifically made for Java files. This stager turns out to be a suitable one when it comes to attacking OS X. Use the following set of commands to execute the said stager :

The stager will create a jar file as told above, as the said file will be executed in the victim’s system, you will have your session as shown in the image :

osx/safari_launcher

The last stager we will use is osx/safari_launcher, this will generate an HTML script for safari. For this stager, run the following set of commands:

Run the generated code in the safari of victim’s PC and so you shall have your session as shown in the image below :

So, these were five ways to attack or pentest OS X. They are pretty easy and convenient. Each of them is valid and up to date.

Author: Sanjeet Kumar is an Information Security Analyst | Pentester | Researcher  Contact Here

Web Developer: 1: Vulnhub Lab Walkthrough

Hello friends! Today we are going to take another boot2root challenge known as “Web Developer: 1”. The credit for making this VM machine goes to “Fred Wemeijer” and it is another boot2root challenge in which our goal is to get root access to complete the challenge. You can download this VM here.

Security Level: Intermediate

Penetrating Methodology:

  • IP Discovery using netdiscover
  • Network scanning (Nmap)
  • Surfing HTTP service port
  • Enumerating directories using Dirb
  • Finding “cap” file
  • Analyzing the “cap” file and finding WordPress password
  • Installing the vulnerable plugin in WordPress
  • Exploiting the vulnerable to get a reverse shell
  • Finding SSH login and password
  • Finding application is a sudoers list
  • Getting flag

Walkthrough

Let’s start off with scanning the network to find our target.

We found our target –> 192.168.19.131

Our next step is to scan our target with nmap.

From the NMAP Version Scan we enumerated the following details:

22 Port having the SSH service and 80 Port having HTTP service.

As the HTTP service is running on the target server, let’s open the IP Address on the Web Browser.

As we couldn’t find any links on this page. So, we will do a directory bruteforcing using dirb scan. From the scanning result, we choose the highlighted directory for further enumeration.

So, we opened this directory in the browser and found a cap file.

We will open cap file in Wireshark, and you can see that we found the username and password through it.

And using the above username and password, you can directly log on to the website. As you can see that the website is in WordPress. And I remember that there is a plug-in of WordPress that is vulnerable. So, in the plugin I added a new plugin i.e. ReFlex Gallery as you can in the image below:

Now, we will use the in-build exploit from Metasploit to exploit this plugin and get a session. And for this, we use the following set of commands:

Once we got the session, I navigated through it a lot and found the wp-config.php, now, when reading the config file, we find username and password.

Now we find credentials inside the file, we use this credential to log in through SSH. After logging in we check the sudoers list and find we can run “tcpdump” as the root user.

So, we can execute a file using tcpdump, so we use the following command to execute “ls -al /root” command. Now the command will be executed only when tcpdump captures a packet.

After starting tcpdump, in a new terminal, we connect to the target machine through SSH. Now we send a TCP packet to the 127.0.0.1 using netcat. We had to use this locally as we started tcpdump on the loopback interface.

As soon as we send the packet, our command is executed and we can see all the files inside “/root” directory. Inside “/root” directory, we find a file called “flag.txt”. We are again going to use tcpdump command to open “flag.txt” and are able to get the final flag.

Author: Sayantan Bera is a technical writer at hacking articles and cybersecurity enthusiast. Contact Here