Building the HashCat API in Ruby to Crack Passwords in the Cloud
Have you ever had an amazing idea for automating two or more pieces of technology and then realized one of them doesn’t have an API? I came across this problem more than once during the development of a couple of projects here at Praetorian. In this post, I’ll share some of the libraries and techniques I have used to build out APIs for CLI programs, such as HashCat and nmap. Hopefully, these techniques and libraries will be helpful to you when building out new web applications and frameworks.
Using Developer Debugging Tools to Pentest Mobile Applications
During a recent assessment, I was pentesting a hybrid mobile application that is a companion to a web application. The applications allow users to collaborate while creating new interactive digital content. Through the web interface, content creators are allowed to upload a wide range of files, including HTML files, and share the content with other individuals in their organization. Thus, any user with proper permissions is able to view and edit shared content.
Man-in-the-Middle TLS Protocol Downgrade Attack
A flaw was recently found in OpenSSL that allowed for an attacker to negotiate a lower version of TLS between the client and server (CVE-2014-3511). While this vulnerability was quickly patched, an attacker that has control of your traffic can still simulate this attack today. Let’s explore how this is possible through looking at man-in-the-middle attacks and how browsers handle SSL/TLS connections. In addition, we will see the implications of the attack on cryptographic security.
PHP-CGI Remote Command Execution Vulnerability Exploitation
During a recent penetration test, our team found a few web servers that were vulnerable to a PHP-CGI query string parameter vulnerability (CVE-2012-1823). This vulnerability allows an attacker to execute commands without authentication, under the privileges of the web server. The target environment had very strong egress controls in place. All outbound ports were blocked and only ports 80 and 443 were allowed inbound. This made it difficult to obtain an interactive shell. Therefore, we decided to build a proof of concept exploit script using cURL to execute commands and then take it to the next level by authoring a new Metasploit Module.
MAC Cryptographic Errors and Vulnerabilities in SSO Authentication
In-house crypto is often a goldmine of cryptographic errors and vulnerabilities. In this post, I’ll describe one of the glaring errors discovered in an online customer support and help desk solution we were considering for use in Praetorian’s cloud-based password cracking service, Project Mars. Hopefully, this can serve as a warning to anyone thinking about writing his or her own crypto libraries.
Exploiting Mobile Banking with HeartBleed Vulnerability
For anyone who has not heard, a critical SSL vulnerability called HeartBleed was made public earlier this week that affects a widely used version of OpenSSL. In this post, I will demonstrate the HeartBleed vulnerability being exploited on a vulnerable mobile banking application and backend server within our test environments.
How to Identify and Prevent UIWebView Cross-Site Scripting
Cross-site scripting occurs when malicious scripts are injected into an otherwise benign or trusted website. Within the mobile security field, cross-site scripting can occur in unlikely places, such as the UIWebView on iOS. For purposes of illustration, we’ll discuss a recent instance of UIWebView cross-site scripting we came across in a test. We’ll also discuss a similar app that does things correctly. Then we’ll cover why problems like this occur and how it’s difficult for developers to foresee these security issues.
How To Identify and Prevent LDAP Injection (Part 2)
LDAP injection occurs when an application fails to neutralize characters that have special meaning in LDAP. Closely, resembling SQL injection, LDAP injection occurs when LDAP statements are constructed with unverified user-supplied data. This can result in the execution of arbitrary commands such as granting permissions to unauthorized queries as well as content alterations within the LDAP tree. The same advanced exploitation techniques leveraged in SQL Injection can be similarly applied in LDAP injection.
How To Identify and Prevent Query and Command Injections (Part 1)
Query and command injections are some of the most devastating classes of vulnerabilities in existence. This series of blog posts will teach you how to identify and prevent this vulnerability from occurring. In part one we will explore examples of command injection.
Develop Secure Mobile Apps by Studying Vulnerable Android, iOS, and Mobile Web Apps
In today’s mobile world, demand for high-quality, feature-rich applications is increasing, while mobile app development cycles are becoming shorter. With time-to-market pressures greater than ever, security vulnerabilities are manifesting themselves in every stage of the mobile app development life cycle. For our summer internship project, we wanted to come up with a way to help developers create more secure mobile apps.