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DAVID L. DIAZ

"A very fast network logon cracker which support many different services. Number one of the biggest security holes are passwords, as every password security study shows. Hydra is a parallized login cracker which supports numerous protocols to attack. This tool is a proof of concept code, to give researchers and security consultants the possibility to show how easy it would be to gain unauthorized access from remote to a system." read more...

Website: http://freeworld.thc.org/thc-hydra

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DAVID L. DIAZ

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

The Threatconnect analysis

The only technical analysis on why Russia was behind the hack, can be read here: https://www.threatconnect.com/blog/fancy-bear-anti-doping-agency-phishing/

After reading this, I was able to collect the following main points:

It is Russia because Russian APT groups are capable of phishing
It is Russia because the phishing site "wada-awa[.]org was registered and uses a name server from ITitch[.]com, a domain registrar that FANCY BEAR actors recently used"
It is Russia because "Wada-arna[.]org and tas-cass[.]org were registered through and use name servers from Domains4bitcoins[.]com, a registrar that has also been associated with FANCY BEAR activity."
It is Russia, because "The registration of these domains on August 3rd and 8th, 2016 are consistent with the timeline in which the WADA recommended banning all Russian athletes from the Olympic and Paralympic games."
It is Russia, because "The use of 1&1 mail.com webmail addresses to register domains matches a TTP we previously identified for FANCY BEAR actors."

There is an interesting side-track in the article, the case of the @anpoland account. Let me deal with this at the end of this post.

My problem with the above points is that all five flag was publicly accessible to anyone as TTP's for Fancy Bear. And meanwhile, all five is weak evidence. Any script kittie in the world is capable of both hacking WADA and planting these false-flags.

A stronger than these weak pieces of evidence would be:

Malware sharing same code attributed to Fancy Bear (where the code is not publicly available or circulating on hackforums)
Private servers sharing the IP address with previous attacks attributed to Fancy Bear (where the server is not a hacked server or a proxy used by multiple parties)
E-mail addresses used to register the domain attributed to Fancy Bear
Many other things

For me, it is quite strange that after such great analysis on Guccifer 2.0, the Threatconnect guys came up with this low-value post.

The fancybear website

It is quite unfortunate that the analysis was not updated after the documents have been leaked. But let's just have a look at the fancybear . net website, shall we?

Now the question is, if you are a Russian state-sponsored hacker group, and you are already accused of the hack itself, do you create a website with tons of bears on the website, and do you choose the same name (Fancy Bear) for your "Hack team" that is already used by Crowdstrike to refer to a Russian state-sponsored hacker group? Well, for me, it makes no sense. Now I can hear people screaming: "The Russians changed tactics to confuse us". Again, it makes no sense to change tactics on this, while keeping tactics on the "evidence" found by Threatconnect.

It makes sense that a Russian state-sponsored group creates a fake persona, names it Guccifer 2.0, pretends Guccifer 2.0 is from Romania, but in the end it turns out Guccifer 2.0 isn't a native Romanian speaker. That really makes sense.

What happens when someone creates this fancybear website for leaking the docs, and from the Twitter account reaches out to the media? Journalists check the website, they see it was done by Fancy Bear, they ~~Bing~~ Google this name, and clearly see it is a Russian state-sponsored hacker group. Some journalists also found the Threatconnect report, which seems very convincing for the first read. I mean, it is a work of experts, right? So you can write in the headlines that the hack was done by the Russians.

Just imagine an expert in the USA or Canada writing in report for WADA:
"the hack was done by non-Russian, but state-sponsored actors, who planted a lot of false-flags to accuse the Russians and to destroy confidence in past and future leaks". Well, I am sure this is not a popular opinion, and whoever tries this, risks his career. Experts are human, subject to all kinds of bias.

The Guardian

The only other source I was able to find is from The Guardian, where not just one side (it was Russia) was represented in the article. It is quite unfortunate that both experts are from Russia - so people from USA will call them being not objective on the matter. But the fact that they are Russian experts does not mean they are not true ...

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/sep/15/fancy-bears-hackers--russia-wada-tues-leaks

Sergei Nikitin:
"We don't have this in the case of the DNC and Wada hacks, so it's not clear on what basis conclusions are being drawn that Russian hackers or special services were involved. It's done on the basis of the website design, which is absurd," he said, referring to the depiction of symbolically Russian animals, brown and white bears, on the "Fancy Bears' Hack Team" website.

I don't agree with the DNC part, but this is not the topic of conversation here.

Alexander Baranov:
"the hackers were most likely amateurs who published a "semi-finished product" rather than truly compromising information. "They could have done this more harshly and suddenly," he said. "If it was [state-sponsored] hackers, they would have dug deeper. Since it's enthusiasts, amateurs, they got what they got and went public with it.""

The @anpoland side-track

First please check the tas-cas.org hack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=day5Aq0bHsA , I will be here when you finished it. This is a website for "Court of Arbitration for Sport's", and referring to the Threatconnect post, "CAS is the highest international tribunal that was established to settle disputes related to sport through arbitration. Starting in 2016, an anti-doping division of CAS began judging doping cases at the Olympic Games, replacing the IOC disciplinary commission." Now you can see why this attack is also discussed here.

My bet is that this machine was set-up for these @anpoland videos only. Whether google.ru is a false flag or it is real, hard to decide. It is interesting to see that there is no google search done via google.ru, it is used only once.
The creator of the video can't double click. Is it because he has a malfunctioning mouse? Is it because he uses a virtualization console, which is near-perfect OPSEC to hide your real identity? My personal experience is that using virtualization consoles remotely (e.g. RDP) has very similar effects to what we can see on the video.
The timeline of the Twitter account is quite strange, registered in 2010
I agree with the Threatconnect analysis that this @anpoland account is probably a faketivist, and not an activist. But who is behind it, remains a mystery.
Either the "activist" is using a whonix-like setup for remaining anonymous, or a TOR router (something like this), or does not care about privacy at all. Looking at the response times (SQLmap, web browser), I doubt this "activist" is behind anything related to TOR. Which makes no sense for an activist, who publishes his hack on Youtube. People are stupid for sure, but this does not add up. It makes sense that this was a server (paid by bitcoins or stolen credit cards or whatever) rather than a home computer.

For me, this whole @anpoland thing makes no sense, and I think it is just loosely connected to the WADA hack.

The mysterious Korean characters in the HTML source

There is another interesting flag in the whole story, which actually makes no sense. When the website was published, there were Korean characters in HTML comments.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160913013727/http://fancybear.net/

When someone pointed this out on Twitter, these Korean HTML comments disappeared:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160914231209/http://www.fancybear.net/

These HTML comments look like generated HTML comments, from a WYSIWYG editor, which is using the Korean language. Let me know if you can identify the editor.

The Russians are denying it

Well, what choice they have? It does not matter if they did this or not, they will deny it. And they can't deny this differently. Just imagine a spokesperson: "Previously we have falsely denied the DCC and DNC hacks, but this time please believe us, this wasn't Russia." Sounds plausible ...

Attribution

Let me sum up what we know:

It makes sense that the WADA hack was done by Russia, because:

Russia being almost banned from the Olympics due to doping scandal, it made sense to discredit WADA and US Olympians
There are multiple(weak) pieces of evidence which point to Russia

It makes sense that the WADA hack was not done by Russia, because:

By instantly attributing the hack to the Russians, the story was more about to discredit Russia than discrediting WADA or US Olympians.
In reality, there was no gain for Russia for disclosing the documents. Nothing happened, nothing changed, no discredit for WADA. Not a single case turned out to be illegal or unethical.
~~Altering the leaked documents makes no sense if it was Russia~~ (see update at the end). Altering the leaked documents makes a lot of sense if it was not Russia. Because from now on, people can always state "these leaks cannot be trusted, so it is not true what is written there". It is quite cozy for any US organization, who has been hacked or will be hacked. If you are interested in the "Russians forging leaked documents" debate, I highly recommend to start with this The Intercept article
If the Korean characters were false flags planted by the Russians, why would they remove it? If it had been Russian characters, I would understand removing it.
All evidence against Russia is weak, can be easily forged by even any script kittie.

I don't like guessing, but here is my guess. This WADA hack was an operation of a (non-professional) hackers-for-hire service, paid by an enemy of Russia. The goal was to hack WADA, leak the documents, modify some contents in the documents, and blame it all on the Russians ...

Questions and answers

Was Russia capable of doing this WADA hack? Yes.
Was Russia hacking WADA? Maybe yes, maybe not.
Was this leak done by a Russian state-sponsored hacker group? I highly doubt that.
Is it possible to buy an attribution-dice where all six-side is Russia? No, it is sold-out.

Let me know what you think about this, and please comment.

Update: As TheGrugq pointed out, Guccifer has been found to alter documents https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/comments/4uyih3/russian_hackers_altered_emails_before_release_to/?st=IUJDLSIE&sh=e195e908

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