Make Dionaea stealthier for fun and no profit

I'm in my "honeypot playing period" and I've tried to scan my Dionaea with Nmap which detect of course lots of port listening but more annoying, last versions of Nmap are able to see that some services are provided by Dionaea ...

So if you want your Honeypot to be stealthier you can apply some tricks. Before to modify Dionaea services behavior, you have to know how Nmap services fingerprint feature works (I will only speak about Nmap, because that's the most used ports scanner, it's up to you to try with others).

In order to be able to discover the name and version of a service, Nmap use Perl Compatible Regular Expressions. All these regexp are stored in /usr/share/nmap/nmap-service-probes (path can change according to OS). If you want to understand nmap-service-probes file's syntax, I recommend you to read this. Below, some probes extracted from this file :

So if we want to hide our Dionaea honeypot from Nmap users, we have to modify Dionaea behavior to unmatch Nmap probes. First, list all Dionaea probes of this file :

[steeve@omega ~]$ cat /usr/share/nmap/nmap-service-probes | grep Dionaea

We can see that Nmap is able to detect "only" 4 services offered by Dionaea : FTP, HTTP, MSSQL and SMB. I will show you how we can deceive Nmap by modifying few files in Dionaea. I won't show you how to tweak MSSQL service because I haven't make deeper and this service looks a bit more complicated ... (If you have a solution, you can send me a mail or share in comments :-) 

First, if we look at the FTP probe, we can see that Nmap only checks the connection banner. So we just have to change it, and Nmap will be lost in its attempt to retrieve service name and version. For sure we can put any banner, but the best thing to do (in my opinion) is to try to act like a real FTP server. Shodan is a great tool to help us to know how to simulate FTP servers, check this link. I have choose to use MS FTP banner : "Microsoft FTP Service".

So we have to edit the Ftp python file located in : /opt/dionaea/lib/dionaea/python/dionaea/ftp.py. Now you just have to replace "Welcome to the ftp service" by the banner of your choice :

If we check HTTP Nmap probe, we can see that's a static one, no regexp used. This probe is based on HTTP headers and HTML source code. There is at least two simple solutions. We can see that HTTP service lists the directory content, so first we can decide to simply put a file in /opt/dionaea/var/dionaea/wwwroot directory, and HTML source code will be different and won't check probe anymore. The second solution is to modify the HTML code sent by Dionaea in /opt/dionaea/lib/dionaea/python/dionaea/http.py. For example, in list_directory(), we can change DTD, title page ...

SMB probe provided by Nmap is based on the value of two fields of the SMB Negotiate Protocol Response : "OemDomainName" and "ServerName". Nmap expects to receive respectively "WORKGROUP" and "HOMEUSER-XXXXXX" where X represent random data. It seems quite easy to mislead Nmap on SMB service too. We just have to modify those values in  SMB_Negociate_Protocol_Response class of file /opt/dionaea/lib/dionaea/python/dionaea/smb/include/smbfields.py. Let's try with "HINMAP" and "TRYHARDER".

You can see results of our tricks just below. Sure, that's not perfect but it's better than nothing ;-)

In this blog post, I've shown you how to use Nmap probes to "protect" your honeypot, but you can do the opposite adding new probes to get a more powerfull Nmap. In addition, it will be interesting to modify MSSQL behavior and SSL certificates to obtain a no verbose honeypot (look at the first scan for SSL certificates details).

FYI : Markus, Dionaea's creator, won't fix Dionaea regarding to Nmap (or other scanners) possible detection. It's a cat-and-mouse game that he can't win because some protocols are tricky to implement and modify whereas Nmap probes are very easy to add. You can read this mail on Nepenthes mailing list.

XSS on HP printer web interface

Yesterday I was watching a Defcon 19 talk about multi-function printer security which was pretty fun. So this give me an idea : what about mine ? For sure, I have not a professional printer which can be connected to an LDAP or whatever, but my printer (HP Deskjet 3070A) has network access too :)

According to Nmap, lots of TCP port seem opened :

Starting Nmap 5.21 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2012-04-22 21:16 CEST
Nmap scan report for HP7D7AA8 (192.168.1.23)
Host is up (0.28s latency).
Not shown: 65520 closed ports
PORT     STATE SERVICE
80/tcp   open  http
443/tcp  open  https
631/tcp  open  ipp
3910/tcp open  unknown
3911/tcp open  unknown
6839/tcp open  unknown
7435/tcp open  unknown
8080/tcp open  http-proxy
9100/tcp open  jetdirect
9101/tcp open  jetdirect
9102/tcp open  jetdirect
9110/tcp open  unknown
9111/tcp open  DragonIDSConsole
9112/tcp open  unknown
9220/tcp open  unknown
9290/tcp open  unknown
MAC Address: 2C:76:8A:7D:7A:A8 (Unknown)
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 855.57 seconds

Ok cool, let's see the HTTP server and the Web interface ...

Printer's HTTP server name is too verbose, it looks like :

HP HTTP Server; HP Deskjet 3070 B611 series - 012345; Serial Number: 0123456789ABCD; Munich_mp1 Built:Thu Apr 28, 2011 03:49:36PM {0123456789ABC, ASIC id 0x00340100}

Yes we can get the serial number from the HTTP Server header :)

Now if we take a look on the web interface, we can found a fun XSS. As this printer is Wifi capable, we can configure Wifi using this interface. But what about a cool SSID like "<script> alert('owned?') </script>" ? 

I let you setup your AP with aforementioned SSID. Note than you can use an Android phone, it's easy and quick to configure :)

As soon as this Wifi AP is setup, you can configure you printer to use it : Network > Wireless Setup Wizard (https://<IP>/#hId-setupPage).

Click on "Start Wizard" :














We can see our new AP :



















Now if we select it and click on "Next", we get our XSS :D

Caught and analyzed

In last september, I was playing with Dionaea honeypot which is a great tool (see previous article). After have caught some malwares I would to analyse one of them.

Informations about the file

According to the VirusTotal report, the file I've choose to analyzed is an IRC bot. VT shows an interesting information : the malware seems to be packed with PolyCrypt. In fact the packer version is exactly PolyCrypt PE 2.1.5. During the analysis I have found these string relating to the packer software : "PolyCrypt PE (c) 2004-2005, JLabSoftware.".

After unpacking, we can take a look to the imported DLL and functions : details here

And now we can start the real work : the reverse of the malware !


Let's start the analysis

At startup, the malware creates a script file located at c:\a.bat. The script can be downloaded here.

The script creates file 1.reg in temp directory (c:\Documents and Settings\%user%\Local Settings\Temp), then run regedit with the created reg file before to delete 1.reg and himself.

The reg file disables DCOM, RemoteConnect, restricts anonymous access, disables admin shares (for example C$), changes a lot of TCP/IP parameters and increases the number of possible simultaneous connections to a single HTTP 1.0/1.1 server (50 and 50 instead of respectively 4 and 2). It's obvious that the aim of this last registry modification is to increase DOS effects.

After that registry tweaking, the malware copy himself in c:\windows\system32\host.exe (host.exe is the original filename during spreading). It sets the create, modify and access time of explorer.exe to host.exe. Then, it runs the malware copy which will delete the first malware file.

The malware will edit registry to be executed after reboot. So it adds an entry in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\{Run,RunServices} and in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\OLE named "Windows Update" with "host.exe" as value. Then a thread checks running processes every 30 seconds, a list of around 600 process name is parsed. A second thread disables DCOM, restricts anonymous access and disables IPC$ share every 2 minutes. And the last created thread, checks every 120 milliseconds that the malware will be executing at OS startup. After the creation of these 3 threads, Internet status is checked every 30 seconds and if the victim host has Internet access, the payload is run.

Payload

Of course, as this malware is an IRC bot, it implements some IRC commands like USER, PASS, NICK, JOIN, PONG, NOTICE, PRIVMSG, QUIT... After each action, the bot will send to the IRC C&C server NOTICE or PRIVMSG message to report the success or not of the action.

This payload has many features :

- keylogger

- Ping, TCP, UDP, HTTP flood

- DNS cache flush

- ARP table flush

- send email (spam)

- search files and directories

- move files

- get informations about the system : CPU number, CPU frequency, memory usage, disk space, disk type (network, cdrom ...), username, OS version (95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, 2003, XP or Unkown), user domain ...

- get informations about the network : IP, hostname, connection type

- get serial of 42 games (Counter-Strike, FIFA 2003... whole list here), Windows product key and the customer number

- get clipboard data

- list running AV/FW and other "security products" (ollydbg ...). The list contains around 600 processes.

- list registered services and their status (unknown, paused, pausing, continuing, starting, stoping, stoped, running, stopped)

- manage services

- restore the system in a healthy state (delete the registry key and the malware file)

- download and run binary files

- send files

- kill processes

- reverse shell (after authentication on the bot)

- update mecanism

- network sniffing

- TCP ports scan

- basic FTP server

- basic HTTP server used to download files and to send back file and directory search report

- bruteforce SQL server using a built-in list of around 1700 passwords (list here). If logon success, it will download by FTP the malware and run it thanks to "EXEC master..xp_cmdshell".

- video recording using webcam

- screenshot capabilities

- add $C, $IPC, and $ADMIN network shares

- ...

Commands

A non-exhaustive list of IRC commands can be downloaded here.


C&C

Botnet owners use IRC to exchange informations with bots, send commands ... The domain name used to contact the C&C is blah.swXXXXXXXme.com and seems to be located in England (isp : ValueVPS Limited - Hosting network).  The IRC server used by this C&C server is UnrealIRCd 3.2.7 which is listening on port 7878. Channels listed are #GuardBot-Admin, #uk, #fuckoff and #b (joined by bots). A password (imallowed2020) is required to join #b channel.

Bots name are something similare to [GSA]-123456.

Port 7878 isn't the only open port :

• 80/tcp    open     http         Apache httpd 2.2.14 ((Fedora))
• 99/tcp    open     ssh          OpenSSH 5.1 (protocol 2.0)
• 6001/tcp  open     irc          Unreal ircd (used to link to other irc servers)
• 7878/tcp  open     irc          Unreal ircd (used by irc clients)
• 10000/tcp open     http        MiniServ 1.530 (Webmin httpd)
• 65146/tcp open     irc          Unreal ircd (used by irc clients)

Apache is hosting the default apache webpage and on port 10000 we can find Webmin interface to administrate the server.

OS seems to be a Fedora 12 with a 2.6 kernel.

This C&C server doesn't control a huge botnet. I have done several connections to this botnet, and the number of bots was between 467 and 1393. According IRC stats, the max number of IRC users (bots) was 4088.

STATS u

:pwned28.ircd.net 242 [GSA]-370921 :Server Up 0 days, 21:46:20

:pwned28.ircd.net 250 [GSA]-370921 :Highest connection count: 1393 (4088 clients)

In addition, this server suffer from reliability problems. During my analysis, it was sometimes unavailable (january 9th, 12th...).

How to delete it ?

As this malware isn't an advanced one, it's easy to remove it from an infected computer. First you have to kill "host.exe" process using task manager or an other tool. Then you must delete the file "host.exe" located in c:\windows\system32\. With default view options, the file is invisible. You need to uncheck "Hide protected operating system files" in Windows view options. Finally, in the registry you have to delete the key "Windows Update" stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\OLE and in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\{Run,RunServices}. It could be great to restore all other registry values modified by a.bat file at the beginning of the infection but you will need original values to do that ...

Comments

This malware isn't very stealth because we can found it quite easily in file system and it's even easier with task manager. According to Windows version that the malware can detect and the list of games, I can say that's an old malware with no advanced protections against RE.

Nowadays, some (a lot of ?) malware are developed by governments and cybercriminal groups. I think that's not the case of this trojan because of its "simplicity", the unreliable C&C server and some strings found in it, like "Goodbye happy r00ting.", "NzmxFtpd Owns j0" and "Nice try, idiot." doesn't look professionnal.

I have found on the Internet, a SNORT rules file which list IP address used by the C&C server. So if you have an IDS in your company, you can use this rules file which contains a list of known C&C servers, to generate alerts when an host is communicating with one of these servers.