ADITYA MISHRA

Unknown

Information gathering can be broken into seven logical steps. Footprinting is performed during the first two steps of unearthing initial information and locating the network range.

Footprinting

Footprinting is defined as the process of establishing a scenario or creating a map of an organization's network and systems. Information gathering is also known as footprinting an organization. Footprinting is an important part of reconnaissance process which is typically used for collecting possible information about a targeted computer system or network. Active and Passive both could be Footprinting. The example of passive footprinting is assessment of a company's website, whereas attempting to gain access to sensitive information through social engineering is an example of active information gathering. Basically footprinting is the beginning step of hacker to get hacked someone because having information about targeted computer system is the main aspect of hacking. If you have an information about individual you wanna hack so you can easily hacked that individual. The basic purpose of information gathering is at least decide what type of attacks will be more suitable for the target. Here are some of the pieces of information to be gathered about a target
during footprinting:

Domain name
Network blocks
Network services and applications
System architecture
Intrusion detection system
Authentication mechanisms
Specific IP addresses
Access control mechanisms
Phone numbers
Contact addresses

Once this information is assemble, it can give a hacker better perception into the organization, where important information is stored, and how it can be accessed.

Footprinting Tools

Footprinting can be done using hacking tools, either applications or websites, which allow the hacker to locate information passively. By using these footprinting tools, a hacker can gain some basic information on, or "footprint," the target. By first footprinting the target, a hacker can eliminate tools that will not work against the target systems or network. For example, if a graphics design firm uses all Macintosh computers, then all hacking software that targets Windows systems can be eliminated. Footprinting not only speeds up the hacking process by eliminating certain tool sets but also minimizes the chance of detection as fewer hacking attempts can be made by using the right tool for the job. Some of the common tools used for footprinting and information gathering are as follows:

Domain name lookup
Whois
NSlookup
Sam Spade

Before we discuss these tools, keep in mind that open source information can also yield a wealth of information about a target, such as phone numbers and addresses. Performing Whois requests, searching domain name system (DNS) tables, and using other lookup web tools are forms of open source footprinting. Most of this information is fairly easy to get and legal to obtain.

Footprinting a Target

Footprinting is part of the preparatory pre-attack phase and involves accumulating data regarding a target's environment and architecture, usually for the purpose of finding ways to intrude into that environment. Footprinting can reveal system vulnerabilities and identify the ease with which they can be exploited. This is the easiest way for hackers to gather information about computer systems and the companies they belong to. The purpose of this preparatory phase is to learn as much as you can about a system, its remote access capabilities, its ports and services, and any specific aspects of its security.

DNS Enumeration

DNS enumeration is the process of locating all the DNS servers and their corresponding records for an organization. A company may have both internal and external DNS servers that can yield information such as usernames, computer names, and IP addresses of potential target systems.

NSlookup and DNSstuff

One powerful tool you should be familiar with is NSlookup (see Figure 2.2). This tool queries DNS servers for record information. It's included in Unix, Linux, and Windows operating systems. Hacking tools such as Sam Spade also include NSlookup tools. Building on the information gathered from Whois, you can use NSlookup to find additional IP addresses for servers and other hosts. Using the authoritative name server information from Whois ( AUTH1.NS.NYI.NET ), you can discover the IP address of the mail server.

Syntax
nslookup www.sitename.com

nslookup www.usociety4.com

Performing DNS Lookup

This search reveals all the alias records for www.google.com and the IP address of the web server. You can even discover all the name servers and associated IP addresses.

Understanding Whois and ARIN Lookups

Whois evolved from the Unix operating system, but it can now be found in many operating systems as well as in hacking toolkits and on the Internet. This tool identifies who has registered domain names used for email or websites. A uniform resource locator (URL), such as www.Microsoft.com , contains the domain name ( Microsoft.com ) and a hostname or alias ( www ).
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) requires registration of domain names to ensure that only a single company uses a specific domain name. The Whois tool queries the registration database to retrieve contact information about the individual or organization that holds a domain registration.

Using Whois

Go to the DNSStuff.com website and scroll down to the free tools at the bottom of the page.
Enter your target company URL in the WHOIS Lookup field and click the WHOIS button.
Examine the results and determine the following:
- Registered address
- Technical and DNS contacts
- Contact email
- Contact phone number
- Expiration date

Visit the company website and see if the contact information from WHOIS matches up to any contact names, addresses, and email addresses listed on the website.

If so, use Google to search on the employee names or email addresses. You can learn the email naming convention used by the organization, and whether there is any information that should not be publicly available.

Syntax
whois sitename.com
whois usociety4.com

More info

Unknown

In this article we are going to go through File Inclusion Vulnerability. Wikipedia defines File Inclusion Vulnerability as: "A file inclusion vulnerability is a type of web vulnerability that is most commonly found to affect web applications that rely on a scripting run time. This issue is caused when an application builds a path to executable code using an attacker-controlled variable in a way that allows the attacker to control which file is executed at run time. A file include vulnerability is distinct from a generic directory traversal attack, in that directory traversal is a way of gaining unauthorized file system access, and a file inclusion vulnerability subverts how an application loads code for execution. Successful exploitation of a file inclusion vulnerability will result in remote code execution on the web server that runs the affected web application."
There are two types of File Inclusion Vulnerabilities, LFI (Local File Inclusion) and RFI (Remote File Inclusion). Offensive Security's Metasploit Unleashed guide describes LFI and RFI as:
"LFI vulnerabilities allow an attacker to read (and sometimes execute) files on the victim machine. This can be very dangerous because if the web server is misconfigured and running with high privileges, the attacker may gain access to sensitive information. If the attacker is able to place code on the web server through other means, then they may be able to execute arbitrary commands.
RFI vulnerabilities are easier to exploit but less common. Instead of accessing a file on the local machine, the attacker is able to execute code hosted on their own machine."
In simpler terms LFI allows us to use the web application's execution engine (say php) to execute local files on the web server and RFI allows us to execute remote files, within the context of the target web server, which can be hosted anywhere remotely (given they can be accessed from the network on which web server is running).
To follow along, click on the File Inclusion navigation link of DVWA, you should see a page like this:

Lets start by doing an LFI attack on the web application.
Looking at the URL of the web application we can see a parameter named page which is used to load different php pages on the website.

http://localhost:9000/vulnerabilities/fi/?page=include.php

Since it is loading different pages we can guess that it is loading local pages from the server and executing them. Lets try to get the famous /etc/passwd file found on every linux, to do that we have to find a way to access it via our LFI. We will start with this:

../etc/passwd

entering the above payload in the page parameter of the URL:

http://localhost:9000/vulnerabilities/fi/?page=../etc/passwd

we get nothing back which means the page does not exist. Lets try to understand what we are trying to accomplish. We are asking for a file named passwd in a directory named etc which is one directory up from our current working directory. The etc directory lies at the root (/) of a linux file system. We tried to guess that we are in a directory (say www) which also lies at the root of the file system, that's why we tried to go up by one directory and then move to the etc directory which contains the passwd file. Our next guess will be that maybe we are two directories deeper, so we modify our payload to be like this:

../../etc/passwd

we get nothing back. We continue to modify our payload thinking we are one more directory deeper.

../../../etc/passwd

no luck again, lets try one more:

../../../../etc/passwd

nop nothing, we keep on going one directory deeper until we get seven directories deep and our payload becomes:

../../../../../../../etc/passwd

which returns the contents of passwd file as seen below:

This just means that we are currently working in a directory which is seven levels deep inside the root (/) directory. It also proves that our LFI is a success. We can also use php filters to get more and more information from the server. For example if we want to get the source code of the web server we can use php wrapper filter for that like this:

php://filter/convert.base64-encode/resource=index.php

We will get a base64 encoded string. Lets copy that base64 encoded string in a file and save it as index.php.b64 (name can be anything) and then decode it like this:

cat index.php.b64 | base64 -d > index.php

We will now be able to read the web application's source code. But you maybe thinking why didn't we simply try to get index.php file without using php filter. The reason is because if we try to get a php file with LFI, the php file will be executed by the php interpreter rather than displayed as a text file. As a workaround we first encode it as base64 which the interpreter won't interpret since it is not php and thus will display the text. Next we will try to get a shell. Before php version 5.2, allow_url_include setting was enabled by default however after version 5.2 it was disabled by default. Since the version of php on which our dvwa app is running on is 5.2+ we cannot use the older methods like input wrapper or RFI to get shell on dvwa unless we change the default settings (which I won't). We will use the file upload functionality to get shell. We will upload a reverse shell using the file upload functionality and then access that uploaded reverse shell via LFI.
Lets upload our reverse shell via File Upload functionality and then set up our netcat listener to listen for a connection coming from the server.

nc -lvnp 9999

Then using our LFI we will execute the uploaded reverse shell by accessing it using this url:

http://localhost:9000/vulnerabilities/fi/?page=../../hackable/uploads/revshell.php

Voila! We have a shell.

To learn more about File Upload Vulnerability and the reverse shell we have used here read Learning Web Pentesting With DVWA Part 5: Using File Upload to Get Shell. Attackers usually chain multiple vulnerabilities to get as much access as they can. This is a simple example of how multiple vulnerabilities (Unrestricted File Upload + LFI) can be used to scale up attacks. If you are interested in learning more about php wrappers then LFI CheetSheet is a good read and if you want to perform these attacks on the dvwa, then you'll have to enable allow_url_include setting by logging in to the dvwa server. That's it for today have fun.
Leave your questions and queries in the comments below.

References:

FILE INCLUSION VULNERABILITIES: https://www.offensive-security.com/metasploit-unleashed/file-inclusion-vulnerabilities/
php://: https://www.php.net/manual/en/wrappers.php.php
LFI Cheat Sheet: https://highon.coffee/blog/lfi-cheat-sheet/
File inclusion vulnerability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_inclusion_vulnerability
PHP 5.2.0 Release Announcement: https://www.php.net/releases/5_2_0.php

Related news

Unknown

Update: Feb 19. 2015

We have been adding pcaps to the collection so remember to check out the folder ( Pcap collection) for the recent pcaps.

I had a project to test some malicious and exploit pcaps and collected a lot of them (almost 1000) from various public sources. You can see them in the PUBLIC folder. The credits go to the authors of the pcaps listed in the name of each file. Please visit their blogs and sites to see more information about the pcaps, see their recent posts, and send them thanks. The public pcaps have no passwords on them.

Update:Dec 13. 2014

Despite rare updates of this post, we have been adding pcaps to the collection so remember to check out the folder ( Pcap collection (New link)) for the recent pcaps!

Update:Dec 31. 2013 - added new pcaps

I did some spring cleaning yesterday and came up with these malware and exploit pcaps. Such pcaps are very useful for IDS and signature testing and development, general education, and malware identification. While there are some online public sandboxes offering pcaps for download like Cuckoo or Anubis but looking for them is a tedious task and you cannot be totally sure the pcap is for the malware family supposedly analysed - in other words, if the sandbox says it is Zeus does not necessarily mean that it is.

I found some good pcap repositories here (http://www.netresec.com/?page=PcapFiles) but there are very few pcaps from malware.

These are from identified and verified (to the best of my knowledge and belief - email me if you find errors) malware samples.

All of them show the first stage with the initial callback and most have the DNS requests as well. A few pcaps show extended malware runs (e.g. purplehaze pcap is over 500mb).
Most pcaps are mine, a few are from online sandboxes, and one is borrowed from malware.dontneedcoffee.com. That said, I can probably find the corresponding samples for all that have MD5 listed if you really need them. Search contagio, some are posted with the samples.

Each file has the following naming convention:
BIN [RTF, PDF] - the filetype of the dropper used, malware family name, MD5, and year+month of the malware analysis.

I will be adding more pcaps in the future. Please donate your pcaps from identified samples, I am sure many of you have.

Thank you

Download

Download all together or separately.

All pcaps archives have the same password (same scheme), email me if you need it. I tried posting it without any passwords and pass infected but they get flagged as malware. Modern AV rips though zips and zips with the pass 'infected' with ease.

APT PCAPS

Download all together or separately.

2012-12-31 BIN_Xinmic_8761F29AF1AE2D6FACD0AE5F487484A5-pcap
2013-09-08 BIN_TrojanPage_86893886C7CBC7310F7675F4EFDE0A29-pcap
2013-09-08 BIN_Darkcomet_DC98ABBA995771480AECF4769A88756E-pcap
2013-09-02 8202_tbd_ 6D2C12085F0018DAEB9C1A53E53FD4D1-pcap
2013-09-02 BIN_8202_6d2c12085f0018daeb9c1a53e53fd4d1-pcap
2013-09-02 BIN_Vidgrab_6fd868e68037040c94215566852230ab-pcap
2013-09-02 BIN_PlugX_2ff2d518313475a612f095dd863c8aea-pcap
2013-09-02 BIN_Taidoor_46ef9b0f1419e26f2f37d9d3495c499f-pcap
2013-09-02 BIN_Vidgrab_660709324acb88ef11f71782af28a1f0-pcap
2013-09-02 BIN_Gh0st-gif_f4d4076dff760eb92e4ae559c2dc4525-pcap.zip
2013-07-15 BIN_Taleret.E_5328cfcb46ef18ecf7ba0d21a7adc02c.pcap
2013-05-14 BIN_Mediana_0AE47E3261EA0A2DBCE471B28DFFE007_2012-10.pcap
2013-05-14 BIN_Hupigon_8F90057AB244BD8B612CD09F566EAC0C
2013-05-14 BIN_LetsGo_yahoosb_b21ba443726385c11802a8ad731771c0_2011-07-19
2013-05-13 BIN_IXESHE_0F88D9B0D237B5FCDC0F985A548254F2-2013-05-pcap
2013-05-06 BIN_DNSWatch_protux_4F8A44EF66384CCFAB737C8D7ADB4BB8_2012-11-pcap
2013-05-06 BIN_9002_D4ED654BCDA42576FDDFE03361608CAA_2013-01-30-pcap
2013-05-06 BIN_BIN_RssFeeder_68EE5FDA371E4AC48DAD7FCB2C94BAC7-2012-06-pcap (not a common name, see the traffic ssheet http://bit.ly/maltraffic )
2013-04-30 BIN_MSWab_Yayih_FD1BE09E499E8E380424B3835FC973A8_us-pcap
2013-04-29 BIN_LURK_AF4E8D4BE4481D0420CCF1C00792F484_20120-10-pcap
2013-04-29 BIN_XTremeRAT_DAEBFDED736903D234214ED4821EAF99_2013-04-13-pcap
BIN_Enfal_Lurid_0fb1b0833f723682346041d72ed112f9_2013-01.pcap
BIN_Gh0st_variant-v2010_B1D09374006E20FA795B2E70BF566C6D_2012-08.pcap
BIN_Likseput_E019E37F19040059AB5662563F06B609_2012-10.pcap
BIN_Nettravler_1f26e5f9b44c28b37b6cd13283838366.pcap
BIN_Nettravler_DA5832657877514306EDD211DEF61AFE_2012-10.pcap
BIN_Sanny-Daws_338D0B855421867732E05399A2D56670_2012-10.pcap
BIN_Sofacy_a2a188cbf74c1be52681f998f8e9b6b5_2012-10.pcap
BIN_Taidoor_40D79D1120638688AC7D9497CC819462_2012-10.pcap
BIN_TrojanCookies_840BD11343D140916F45223BA05ABACB_2012_01.pcap
PDF_CVE-2011-2462_Pdf_2011-12.pcap
RTF_Mongall_Dropper_Cve-2012-0158_C6F01A6AD70DA7A554D48BDBF7C7E065_2013-01.pcap
OSX_DocksterTrojan.pcap

CRIMEWARE PCAPS

Download all together or separately.

2013-11-12_BIN_ChePro_2A5E5D3C536DA346849750A4B8C8613A-1.pcap
2013-10-15_BIN_cryptolocker_9CBB128E8211A7CD00729C159815CB1C.pcap
2013-09-20_BIN_Lader-dlGameoverZeus_12cfe1caa12991102d79a366d3aa79e9.pcap
2013-09-08 BIN_Tijcont_845B0945D5FE0E0AAA16234DC21484E0-pcap
2013-09-08 BIN_Kelihos_C94DC5C9BB7B99658C275B7337C64B33-pcap.zip
2013-08-19 BIN_Nitedrem_508af8c499102ad2ebc1a83fdbcefecb-pcap
2013-08-17 BIN_sality_CEAF4D9E1F408299144E75D7F29C1810-pcap
2013-08-15 BIN_torpigminiloader-pcap.zip
2013-13-08 EK_popads_109.236.80.170_2013-08-13.pcap
2013-11-08 BIN_Alinav5.3_4C754150639AA3A86CA4D6B6342820BE.pcap
2013-08-08 BIN_BitcoinMiner_F865C199024105A2FFDF5FA98F391D74-pcap
2013-08-07 BIN_ZeroAccess_Sirefef_C2A9CCC8C6A6DF1CA1725F955F991940_2013-08-pcap
2013-07-05 BIN_Kuluoz-Asprox_9F842AD20C50AD1AAB41F20B321BF84B
2013-05-31 Wordpress-Mutopy_Symmi_20A6EBF61243B760DD65F897236B6AD3-2pcap.pcap
2013-05-15 BIN_Zeus_b1551c676a54e9127cd0e7ea283b92cc-2012-04.pcap
2013-05-15 BIN_Gypthoy_3EE49121300384FF3C82EB9A1F06F288-2013-05.pcap
2013-05-12 BIN_PassAlert_B4A1368515C6C39ACEF63A4BC368EDB2-2013-05-13
2013-05-12 BIN_HorstProxy_EFE5529D697174914938F4ABF115F762-2013-05-13-pcap
2013-05-12 BIN_Bitcoinminer_12E717293715939C5196E604591A97DF-2013-05-12-pcap
2013-05-07 BIN_ZeroAccess_Sirefef_29A35124ABEAD63CD8DB2BBB469CBC7A_2013-05-pcapc
2013-05-05 BIN_PowerLoader_4497A231DA9BD0EEA327DDEC4B31DA12_2013-05-pcap
2013-05-05 BIN_GameThief_ECBA0FEB36F9EF975EE96D1694C8164C_2013-03-pcap
2013-05-05 BIN_PowerLoader_4497A231DA9BD0EEA327DDEC4B31DA12_2013-05-pcap
2013-04-27 EK_BIN_Blackhole_leadingto_Medfos_0512E73000BCCCE5AFD2E9329972208A_2013-04-pcap
2013-04-26 -- BIN_Citadel_3D6046E1218FB525805E5D8FDC605361-2013-04-samp
BIN_CitadelPacked_2012-05.pcap
BIN_CitadelUnpacked_2012-05.pcap
BIN_Cutwail_284Fb18Fab33C93Bc69Ce392D08Fd250_2012-10.pcap
BIN_Darkmegi_2012-04.pcap
BIN_DarknessDDoS_v8g_F03Bc8Dcc090607F38Ffb3A36Ccacf48_2011-01.pcap-
BIN_dirtjumper_2011-10.pcap
BIN_DNSChanger_2011-12.pcap
BIN_Drowor_worm_0f015bb8e2f93fd7076f8d178df2450d_2013-04.pcap
BIN_Googledocs_macadocs_2012-12.pcap
BIN_Imaut_823e9bab188ad8cb30c14adc7e67066d.pcap
BIN_IRCbot_c6716a417f82ccedf0f860b735ac0187_2013-04.pcap
BIN_Kelihos_aka_Nap_0feaaa4adc31728e54b006ab9a7e6afa.pcap
BIN_LoadMoney_MailRu_dl_4e801b46068b31b82dac65885a58ed9e_2013-04 .pcap
BIN_purplehaze-2012-01.pcap
BIN_ponyloader_470a6f47de43eff307a02f53db134289.pcap
BIN_Ramnitpcap_2012-01.pcap
BIN_Reedum_0ca4f93a848cf01348336a8c6ff22daf_2013-03.pcap
BIN_SpyEye_2010-02.pcap
BIN_Stabuniq_F31B797831B36A4877AA0FD173A7A4A2_2012-12.pcap
BIN_Tbot_23AAB9C1C462F3FDFDDD98181E963230_2012-12.pcap
BIN_Tbot_2E1814CCCF0C3BB2CC32E0A0671C0891_2012-12.pcap
BIN_Tbot_5375FB5E867680FFB8E72D29DB9ABBD5_2012-12.pcap
BIN_Tbot_A0552D1BC1A4897141CFA56F75C04857_2012-12.pcap
BIN_Tbot_FC7C3E087789824F34A9309DA2388CE5_2012-12.pcap
BIN_Tinba_2012-06.pcap
BIN_Vobfus_634AA845F5B0B519B6D8A8670B994906_2012-12.pcap
BIN_Xpaj_2012-05.pcap
BIN_ZeroAccess_3169969E91F5FE5446909BBAB6E14D5D_2012-10.pcap
BIN_ZeusGameover_2012-02.pcap
BIN_Zeus_2010-12.pcap
EK_Blackholev1_2012-03.pcap
EK_Blackholev1_2012-08.pcap
EK_Blackholev2_2012-09.pcap
EK_Blackhole_Java_CVE-2012-4681_2012-08.pcap
EK_Phoenix_2012-04.pcap
EK_Smokekt150(Malwaredontneedcoffee)_2012-09.pcap - credit malware.dontneedcoffee.com

Read more

ADITYA MISHRA

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

CEH Practical: Information-Gathering Methodology