A paper I prepared as part of the UNSW Master of Cyber Security. Alternately available as LaTeX and PDF. Abstract This paper discusses the motivations behind computer network exploitation, the general lifecycle of an attack operation, and the frictions and asymmetries that exist between both the attacker and the efender. One of the greatest challenges is fitting the ever-increasing and changing amount of information into a whole plan or framework to develop the right strategies to prevent such attacks.

Some fun I hacking on a boot to root challenge I did with a mate recently. Enumeration OS Fingerprint root@kali:~/boot2root# nmap -O 192.168.0.102 Starting Nmap 7.60 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2018-07-26 22:44 EDT Nmap scan report for 192.168.0.102 Host is up (0.00022s latency). Not shown: 986 closed ports PORT STATE SERVICE 21/tcp open ftp 80/tcp open http 135/tcp open msrpc 139/tcp open netbios-ssn 445/tcp open microsoft-ds 3389/tcp open ms-wbt-server 8009/tcp open ajp13 8080/tcp open http-proxy 49152/tcp open unknown 49153/tcp open unknown 49154/tcp open unknown 49155/tcp open unknown 49156/tcp open unknown 49157/tcp open unknown MAC Address: 00:50:56:A3:B7:92 (VMware) Device type: general purpose Running: Microsoft Windows 2008|Vista|7 OS CPE: cpe:/o:microsoft:windows_server_2008:r2:sp1 cpe:/o:microsoft:windows_vista::sp1:home_premium cpe:/o:microsoft:windows_7 OS details: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1, Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008 Network Distance: 1 hop OS detection performed.

Intro Containers, and specifically Docker are attracting a crazy amount of industry attention, particularly, I’m finding the software dev space. Slide 1 OK, just quickly what is Docker. Docker is a computer program that performs operating-system-level virtualization also known as containerization. Docker is used to run software packages called “containers”. “Build once, configure once, and run anywhere.” Slide 2 In a containerised world, the container becomes the standard unit of management and deployment.

Awesome tip #1: In metasploit console (msfconsole), once you have loaded up an exploit, take show payloads for a spin. This will show all payloads that are compatible with the given exploit. Awesome! Today we got the chance to work on Metasploitable 3, a Windows VM with a number of vunerability and flags (15ish of them). Its a great way to take this knowledge and apply it to an actual machine.

Privilege Escalation. Basics On Windows, SYSTEM is the highest privilege possible. Local Administrators can effectively get SYSTEM privileges. On Linux, root (uid=0) is the highest privilege possible. Regular users can escalate to root privileges on demand (i.e. sudo). Techniques Kernel exploits - leverage a flaw in the OS. Vunerabilty is determined by researching kernel version, patch levels. Tend to be patched quickly. High privileged programs - get a program running at a higher privilege to execute your code.

Exploitation An exploit is some software which leverages a vunerability to perform an action. Important to differientiate the payload from the exploit. A payload is something executed via an exploit. Finding Exploits Exploit DB Google SearchSploit - a local mirror of exploit-db; useful for local cached copies. For example CVE-2008-4250, maybe assigned different vendor specific labels. In this case MSE08-067, by searching Google and heading to the Microsoft security bullitin:

Covers basics starting with enumeration. There is a process to exposing vunerabilities. Not a linear process. Imposter syndrome is huge in this field, due to the complexity of the field, and how many domains it covers. The anatomy of a hack (EEE); Enumeration, Exploitation, Escalation There are multiple ways to do one thing, for example to figure out if the sshd daemon is running you could: Check if port 22 is listening netstat -tlp Check if the sshd process is running Try to ssh connect to the daemon List the running services through systemd Tools Tools to grok: