________ ___. .__ _________ __
\______ \ ____ __ __\_ |__ | | ____ / _____/_/ |_ _____ _______
| | \ / _ \ | | \| __ \ | | _/ __ \ \_____ \ \ __\\__ \ \_ __ \
| ` \( <_> )| | /| \_\ \| |__\ ___/ / \ | | / __ \_| | \/
/_______ / \____/ |____/ |___ /|____/ \___ > /_______ / |__| (____ /|__|
\/ \/ \/ \/ \/
Windows 8.1 IE/Firefox RCE -> Sandbox Escape -> SYSTEM EoP Exploit Chain
______________
| Remote PAC |
|____________|
^
| HTTPS
_______________ RPC/ALPC _______________ RPC/ALPC _______________
| firefox.exe | ----------> | svchost.exe | -----------> | spoolsv.exe |
|_____________| |_____________| <----------- |_____________|
| RPC/Pipe
|
_______________ |
| malware.exe | <---| Execute impersonating NT AUTHORY\SYSTEM
|_____________|
~
Usage
To run this exploit chain, download the full release/folder structure to an
unpatched Windows 8.1 x64 machine and load either of these two .html files
while connected to the internet:
- CVE-2019-17026\Forrest_Orr_CVE-2019-17026_64-bit.html - via Firefox v65-69
64-bit.
- CVE-2020-0674\Forrest_Orr_CVE-2020-0674_64-bit.html - via Internet Explorer
11 64-bit (Enhanced Protected Mode enabled).
The initial RCE may be run through either IE or FF, and will result in the
execution of a cmd.exe process to your user session with NT AUTHORY\SYSTEM
privileges.
The individual exploits have been successfully tested in the following context:
- CVE-2020-0674 - IE8 64-bit and WPAD on Windows 7 x64, IE11 64-bit and WPAD
on Windows 8.1 x64.
- CVE-2019-17026 - Firefox 65-69 (64-bit) on Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 x64.
Note that while the individual exploits themselves may work on multiple
versions of Windows, the full chain will only work on Windows 8.1.
~
Overview
While this exploit chain makes use of two (now patched) 0day exploits, it also
contains a sandbox escape and EoP technique which are still as of 5/4/2021 not
patched, and remain feasible for integration into future attacka chains today.
The Darkhotel APT group (believed to originate from South Korea) launched a
campaign againt Chinese and Japanese business executives and government officials
through a combination of spear phishing and hacking of luxury hotel networks in
early 2020. The exploits they used (CVE-2020-0674 and CVE-2019-17026, together
dubbed "Double Star") were slight 0day variations of old/existing exploits from
2019: specifically UAF bugs in the legacy JavaScript engine (jscript.dll) and
aliasing bugs in the Firefox IonMonkey engine.
What made the use of these 0day interesting went beyond their ability to achieve
RCE through the Internet Explorer and Firefox web browsers: CVE-2020-0674 in
particular (a UAF in the legacy jscript.dll engine) is exploitable in any process
in which legacy JS code can be executed via jscript.dll. In late 2017, Google
Project Zero released a blog post entitled "aPAColypse now: Exploiting Windows 10
in a Local Network with WPAD/PAC and JScript" [1].
This research brought to light a very interesting attack vector which (at the
time) affected all versions of Windows from 7 onward: the WPAD service (or
"WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service") contains an ancient functionality
for updating proxy configurations via a "PAC" file. Any user which can speak
to the WPAD service (running within an svchost.exe process as LOCAL SERVICE) over
RPC can coerce it into downloading a PAC file from a remote URL containing JS
code which is responsible for setting the correct proxy configuration for a user
supplied URL. Most notably, the legacy jscript.dll engine is used to parse these
PAC files. This opened up an attack vector wherein any process (regardless of
limited user privileges or even sandboxing) could connect to the local WPAD
service over ALPC and coerce it into downloading a malicious PAC file containing
a jscript.dll exploit from a remote URL. This would result in code execution in
the context of LOCAL SERVICE.
Darkhotel took this concept and used it as their sandbox escape after they
obtained RCE via Firefox or Internet Explorer. The next step in their attack
chain is unclear: it appears that they somehow elevated their privileges from
LOCAL SERVICE to SYSTEM and proceeded to execute their malware from this context.
In all of the analysis of the Darkhotel Double Star attack chain, I was not able
to find a detailed explanation of how they achieved this, however it is safe to
assume that their technique need not have been a 0day exploit. Processes launched
by the LOCAL SERVICE account are provided with the SeImpersonate privilege by
default and thus can elevate their security context in the event they can coerce
a privileged connection to themselves via named pipes or ALPC.
It is likely that the Darkhotel APT group used Rotten Potato for their EoP from
LOCAL SERVICE, as this was the simplest and most common technique in widespread
use several years ago (as well as the technique used in the Google Project Zero
"aPAColypse now" research, however I settled on a more robust/modern technique
instead: named pipe impersonation of a coerced RPC connection from the Print
Spooler [2]. This technique combined an old RPC interface popular among Red
Teamers for TGT harvesting in environments with unconstrained delegation enabled
(aka the "Printer Bug") with an impersonation/Rotten Potato style attack adapted
for local privilege escalation.
Additionally, rather than targeting Windows 7, I decided to focus on Windows 8.1
due to the challenge presented by its enhanced security mitigations such as
non-deterministic LFH, high entropy ASLR and Control Flow Guard (CFG).
~
CVE-2020-0674
Malicious PAC file containing CVE-2020-0674 UAF exploit - downloaded into
the WPAD service svchost.exe (LOCAL SERVICE) via RPC trigger. Contains
stage three shellcode (Spool Potato EoP). This exploit may serve a dual purpose
as an initial RCE attack vector through IE11 64-bit aas well.
_______________ RPC _______________ CVE-2020-0674 ________________
| firefox.exe | -----> | svchost.exe | ---------------> | Spool Potato |
|_____________| |_____________| | shellcode |
|______________|
~
CVE-2019-17026
Firefox 64-bit IonMonkey JIT/Type Confusion RCE. Represents the initial attack
vector when a user visits an infected web page with a vulnerable version of
Firefox. This component contains a stage one (egg hunter) and stage two (WPAD
sandbox escape) shellcode, the latter of which is only effective on Windows 8.1
due to hardcoded RPC IDL interface details for WPAD.
_______________ JIT spray ______________ DEP bypass _______________________
| firefox.exe | -----------> | Egg hunter | ------------> | WPAD sandbox escape |
|_____________| | shellcode | | shellcode (heap) |
|____________| |_____________________|
~
Payloads
This exploit chain has three shellcode payloads, found within this repository
under Payloads\Compiled\JS in their JavaScript encoded shellcode form:
- Stage one: egg hunter shellcode (ASM).
- Stage two: WPAD sandbox escape shellcode (C DLL, sRDI to shellcode).
- Stage three: Spool Potato privilege escalation shellcode (C DLL, sRDI to
shellcode).
When IE is used as the initial RCE attack vector, only the stage two and three
shellcodes are needed. When FF is used as the initial RCE attack vector, all
three are used.
I've also included several additional shellcodes for testing purposes (a
MessageBoxA and WinExec shellcode). Note when using these that in the case of
Firefox CVE-2019-17026, the shellcode should be represented as a Uint8Array
prefixed by the following egg QWORD: 0x8877665544332211. In the case of
CVE-2020-0674, the shellcode should be represented as a DWORD array.
Also note that when using a WinExec or MessageBoxA payload in conjunction with
Firefox CVE-2019-17026, you must adjust the sandbox content level in the
"about:config" down to 2 first.
~
Credits
maxpl0it - for writing the initial analysis and PoC for CVE-2019-17026
with a focus on the Linux OS, and for writing the initial
analysis and PoC for CVE-2020-0674 with a focus on IE8/11 on
Windows 7 x64.
0vercl0k - for documenting IonMonkey internals in relation to aliasing and
the GVN.
HackSys Team - for tips on the WPAD service and low level JS debugging.
itm4n - for the original research on combining the RPC printer bug with
named pipe impersonation.
~
Links
[1] https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2017/12/apacolypse-now-exploiting-windows-10-in_18.html
[2] https://itm4n.github.io/printspoofer-abusing-impersonate-privileges/
forrest-orr/DoubleStar
A personalized/enhanced re-creation of the Darkhotel "Double Star" APT exploit chain with a focus on Windows 8.1 and mixed with some of my own techniques
JavaScriptGPL-3.0