`Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 13:59:30 -0500 From: .rain.forest.puppy. To: BUGTRAQ@netspace.org Subject: Advisory: NT ODBC Remote Compromise --[ Advisory: NT ODBC Remote Compromise --[ By Matthew Astley [RCPS] http://www.fruitcake.demon.co.uk --[ & Rain Forest Puppy [WireTrip] rfp@wiretrip.net --[ Brief Summary MS Jet database engine (which runs Access databases) allows an individual to embed VBA in string expressions, which may allow the individual to run commandline NT commands. This, combined with the flaw of IIS running ODBC commands as system_local allow a remote attacker to have full control of the system. Other webservers may be affected. Many MS Jet engines are affected, but may not lead to elevated priviledges. --[ Background ODBC allows a program flexible access to one or more relational databases using SQL. If a client fails to quote correctly the meta characters in a piece of data used in an SQL query, an attacker may be able to interfere with the tables in the database (see MS SQL appension 'feature' in Phrack 54, article 8). However, the Microsoft "Jet" database engine (aka MS Access) provides some extensions to SQL which allow the execution of VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). This makes holes in meta character quoting code much more interesting and dangerous. --[ What form does the hole take? In SQL, strings must be enclosed in single quotes. If a string includes a single quote it must be escaped by doubling it up. The Jet engine extends this by allowing strings to enclose a VBA expression inside vertical bar characters in the string, like this: select 'lil'' string | 6+7 | with number' as foo from table; This will produce a recordset containing one field with the value "lil' string 13 with number" for each row of the input table. Innocent enough, if the CGI or ASP programs correctly quote the incoming data. However, since the pipe operator is a rather obscure character and is very poorly documented, most people don't know it's there - apparently even Microsoft programmers. --[ It's a feature, not a bug! Note the following excerpt from a MS Knowledge Base article: (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q147/6/87.asp) Pipe Character or Vertical Bar The pipe character or vertical bar is a reserved character for the Jet database engine. It tells the Jet database engine to evaluate the identifier before evaluating the rest of the expression. Therefore, the Jet database engine inserts the value of the identifier in the expression, and then evaluates it. Vertical bars are used most often in domain aggregate functions when you want the function to automatically recalculate the value it returns in filters. Or vertical bars are used as an alternative to the ampersand (&) operator when you concatenate text values. Because of this, you cannot embed the vertical bar (|) in a literal string, you must embed the Chr() function. Chr(124) is the vertical bar. --[ Where does it apply? Any textual data included in a Jet SQL query can contain quoted VBA, whether it is in data to be inserted in a new record or part of a condition expression. This makes the hole very general (or flexible, if you prefer), since you don't need to know the context in which the string will be evaluated. --[ What commands are available? The biggest restriction is that the code must be evaluated in an expression context - no statements. Anything listed as "VBA" in the "Functions Reference" page of the Access Help file will work, although this seems to vary between versions of the Jet engine - for example, in some cases the "eval" function works and in others it doesn't (although when it is available, eval doesn't actually help much because the |...| operator offers a similar if not identical context). The most useful command is "shell", although this in itself cannot do redirections or pipes - cmd.exe can assist with this though. By using the shell function and running cmd.exe, an attacker can run any command on the system. environ() can also be useful to get environment variables values into your commands, and chr() can be very handy for quoting awkward characters using alphanumerics and brackets. There are also the standard functions like iif() and various string operations (use "&" for concatenation). It would be very difficult to include any kind of loop in the VBA fragment because loops do not have return values. --[ Which characters need quoting, and how? If the exploit string will be passing through anything that tries to escape special characters then ' will be double up - best to use " instead. Ironically, the vertical bar character can only be escaped by using it to evaluate the chr(124) function. VBA will take pairs of double-quotes (") in a VBA string constant the same way SQL will take pairs of single-quotes. If this doesn't seem to work you can always use chr(34). ASP also provides a convenient debugging aid - if the expression cannot be correctly evaluated the error message will often include the whole SQL query with the partially decoded exploit string in it--this could help an attacker 'tweak' the exploit string until it works. If the command needs to be broken up with newlines, they can be inserted between VBA operators inside the |...| construction. --[ How about a practical example? An example of a pipeline: |shell("cmd /c echo " & chr(124) & " format a:")| will format whatever is in the floppy drive at the time. Any errors will be silently ignored, although an iconised window will take the focus for the duration of the command. Using "cmd /c" allows the command piping necessary to get a newline into the format command, otherwise the pipe and 'format' are passed as arguments to 'echo'. This string can be included in anything from a simple ODBC operation to a text item in an ASP form on a web page. The function will normally evaluate to a two or three digit number. A more sophie's-stick-ate-it example involves grabbing a copy of the SAM: |shell("cmd /c rdisk /S-")| |shell("cmd /c copy c:\winnt\repair\sam._ c:\inetput\wwwroot")| ** this example includes assumptions about the location of the ** system and www publishing directory; it's only an example Commands can be stacked: |shell("cmd /c echo 1 > %temp%\foo.txt") & shell("cmd /c echo 2 \ >> %temp%\foo.txt") & shell("cmd /c echo 3 >> %temp%\foo.txt")| ** line broken for clarity It is not clear that the commands will always be executed in order. Each shell command executes asynchronously so the code above has two races for whether the shell commands finish updating the file before the next one starts - results will be variable. --[ Could an attacker modify registry keys? Ultimately the hole allows anything since you can up/download and run any code, but modifying registry keys from VBA seems to be a little tricky. The method using advapi32.dll won't work because it requires statements to declare functions from the library, but there doesn't seem to be a way of giving a statement a return value in VBA. It would be easier to create a temporary .reg file and then merge it with "cmd /c regedit /s %temp%\tmp.reg"; the '/s' is important, as it suppresses the informational dialogs/windows. --[ What permissions will an attacker have? The dangerous part comes from a context misinterpretation with IIS. IIS runs as system_local; it changes its token context (typically to IUSR_xxx) for filesystem access and application execution. However, the context does *NOT* change when interfacing with the ODBC API. Therefore all ODBC functions (and the associated database calls) are happening under system_local. This allows full access to the system. --[ Theory of exploitation This problem can be used over the web against scripts that make queries against local MS Jet ODBC DSNs, therefore, any script or application that uses a MS Jet ODBC DSN could potentially be exploited. The solution is to not use MS Jet ODBC drivers for any DSN--until Microsoft releases a fix. But since this is a documented feature, there stands a chance that some applications may break if removed. --[ Reality of exploitation Ok, so let's get down to some nitty-gritty, real-life examples. We'll give a few that just demonstrate the problem....but since any script/application that gives user entered strings to the MS Jet ODBC DSN are vulnerable, we're not going to laundry-list them; rather, we'll show some of the more common cases we found. --[ Importance of the DSN Just some really quick background on ODBC & DSNs: an application 'connects' to the ODBC service specifying a specific DSN to query to. The DSNs are defined in the ODBC32 applet of the control panel. Each DSN is basically a description of the name of the DSN, the drivers to use (in our case, the MS Jet/Access drivers), and location of the actual database (a .mdb file somewhere in the filesystem). We could also have DSNs that used drivers such as Oracle or MS Sql, and the location would be another server. The whole point is that you only need to know the DSN name--ODBC will take care of where and how the actual database is to be used. So, great, these scripts query a DSN by name. Well, there are times were a server can have the scripts we mention, but when ran, you get an error saying DSN is not found. So now what? Well, if it's an IIS server, check for the existance of /scripts/tools/newdsn.exe. Yes, IIS includes CGI appliations *to make DSNs*. If the server doesn't have the DSN we need, we can just make it for them. We only need newdsn.exe, but it's possible to use a 'GUI' through getdrvrs.exe and dsnform.exe. Here's a flowchart: http://server/scripts/tools/getdrvrs.exe -> pick Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb) -> Enter in the correct DSN name -> Enter a location for the .mdb, example: c:\web.mdb -> Submit This will create the DSN. If you want to be ultra-elite and do it the hard way, you can pass all the parameters to newdsn.exe like so: http://server/scripts/tools/newdsn.exe?driver=Microsoft%2B Access%2BDriver%2B%28*.mdb%29&dsn=DSN_name&dbq=c:\web.mdb& newdb=CREATE_DB&attr= **all one line, no spaces Where dsn is the name you want, and dbq is the file location. So for all the examples, we'll include the DSN name, just in case you have to create it. --[ IIS Sample Applications According to Russ Cooper of NTBugtraq, sample application problems are stupid and we shouldn't waste our time talking about them. He's already denied posts from myself, David Litchfield, and others. So, if you lived in Russ's little world, you won't have any of the following sample apps installed on your server, so you should just stop reading this article right now. But for those of you who realize it's just not that simple, perhaps you can learn something here. Also note this goes beyond sample scripts--they're just being used as a command reference example. Anyways, a good example script is http://server/scripts/samples/details.idc?Fname=&Lname= stick your shellcode in for either Fname or Lname, like so: details.idc?Fname=hi&Lname=|shell("cmd+/c+dir")| This uses DSN named "Web SQL" (notice the space). However, this causes problems, because the actual table must be initialized in the DSN. Never pheer, scripts are here! Run http://server/scripts/samples/ctguestb.idc after you create the DSN (if you had to) and before you run details.idc --[ MSADC (IIS 4.0) Starting with IIS 4.0, Microsoft bundled a way to do remote SQL queries on a DSN simply by interfacting via HTTP to a specific .dll. Bug? Hole? Nope, in the documentation Microsoft states that having MSADC installed could lead to security problems. The particular .dll is at http://server/msadc/msadcs.dll Now the particular problem is that there's a slightly custom way to interface to the .dll, using multipart-forms. So it's beyond the scope of just typing in a paramter by hand. So there's two options. One is to see if the server also has the (optional) interface installed. Check out for the existance of http://server/msadc/samples/adctest.asp ** Note: you have to use Internet Explorer 4.0+ for this This will give you a Java/Javascript interface that allows you to specify the DSN, uid/password, and SQL string to execute. Note that you'll have to obtain the table structure for the DSNs mentioned herein, because you'll need to construct a valid SQL statement. The other option is to obtain those files yourself from another server, or download and install the MS RDS/ADO/ADC components. Look at http://www.microsoft.com/data/ado/ for more info and where to download. ** One note is that the Java interface lets you specify which server to use. So you can open the interface locally, off your own server, or find it on server 1, and specify to run SQL commands against whatever DSN on server 2. The one caveat is that error information is not displayed. It helps to have a sniffer going to see if what ODBC error messages are returned, if any. If you don't get a record listing, you might want to see what the error was. Now, what to do? You can obviously just execute SQL commands that contain the pipe character. For instance: Connection: DSN=AdvWorks Query: Select * from Products where ProductType='|shell("")|' ** Insert your shellcode in the shell() function --[ Sign-Off Well, I'm sure that's enough to chew for a bit. Sorry, the examples weren't as in-depth as usual--you'll just have to be satisfied with theory. :) Matthew Astley [RCPS] http://www.fruitcake.demon.co.uk .rain.forest.puppy. [WireTrip] rfp@wiretrip.net .many thanks to Matthew for working on this project together. :> .greetings to (#!)ADM, (#)Rhino9, and Phrack .special thanks to joewee & antilove for giving me a hard time; stran9er .for all the fun chats and setting me straight; and everyone else I forgot .before these greets become longer than the advisory. :) Oh, and el8.org rox. --[ This advisory is ISO 31337 certified. Fact of life: ADM > * ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 22:00:42 +0100 From: Vittal Aithal To: BUGTRAQ@netspace.org Subject: Re: Advisory: NT ODBC Remote Compromise [ The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set. ] [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ] [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ] Here's some javascript stuff that'll clean up quotes and things before having them sent off in a sql query... only tested with access, so YMMV. function cleanSql (str) { var newStr = ""; str = "" + str; var oneChar = (str.length == 1); if (str.length == 0) { return "null"; } for (var i = 0; i < str.length; i++) { var repStr = ""; if (str.charAt(i) == "'") { newStr += "''"; } else if (str.charAt(i) == "|") { repStr = 124; } else if (str.charAt(i) == "\"") { repStr = 34; } else { newStr += str.charAt(i); } if (repStr) { if (i == 0 && !oneChar) { newStr += "CHR(" + repStr + ") &'"; } else if (i == str.length - 1 && !oneChar) { newStr += "' & CHR(" + repStr + ")"; } else if (!oneChar) { newStr += "' & CHR(" + repStr + ") & '"; } else { newStr += "CHR(" + repStr + ")"; } } if (!repStr && i == 0) { newStr = "'" + newStr; } if (!repStr && i == str.length - 1) { newStr += "'"; } } return newStr; } not elegant, but it does work, and stop |'s getting through. bye vittal -- Vittal Aithal Revolution Ltd ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 14:43:25 -0700 From: Bigby Findrake To: BUGTRAQ@netspace.org Subject: Re: Advisory: NT ODBC Remote Compromise On Tue, 25 May 1999, Vittal Aithal wrote: > Here's some javascript stuff that'll clean up quotes and things before > having them sent off in a sql query... only tested with access, so YMMV. Do keep in mind that while this will stop people from using the aforementioned exploits *only when using your forms*. It is still possible to download your web pages, remove the javascript hooks, and then submit their information, or call the CGI(if method GET is accepted) by hand and get around such security measures. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 09:01:26 +0100 From: Vittal Aithal To: BUGTRAQ@netspace.org Subject: Re: Advisory: NT ODBC Remote Compromise Just to clarify my earlier posting; The code I posted was server-side ASP Javascript. As a number of people have/will point out, running it at the client isn't going to help. I suspect the same methodology could be applied for other environments (coldfusion / perl DBI::DBD / php / etc). cheers vittal ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 18:56:05 +0200 From: Bronek Kozicki To: BUGTRAQ@netspace.org Subject: Re: Advisory: NT ODBC Remote Compromise Hello I have run some testing. Seems to me that this error has been repaired in MSJET40, but exists in MSJET35. Effectively, if Jet 4 is installed (and it's used by ODBC) ther's no problem with .IDC files. If one does not have Jet 4 and is using .IDC to open Jet databases (I have not verified this) I belive this is dangerous situation, described by Matthew Astley. Because MS Access 97 is using Jet 3.5 (even if Jet 4 is installed), the problem still can be seen there. If instead of .IDC (which is considered obsolete) one is using .ASP + ADODB, and ADODB provider used is "Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.3.51" (i.e. older than "4.0") then problem still exists. It's worthy to notice that SQL implementation used in both Jet 4 and Jet 3.5 is little different. Thus applications (in some situations) cannot be simple ported from one to another. One thing I found is different handling of single- and double-qoute character. MS still have not documented differences (or I had no luck to find it). AFAIK MS Jet 4 comes with Microsoft Data Access 2.1 (MSDAC21). Details: System: WinNT Wrkst 4 US, SP5 , IE5 , IIS 4 (Option Pack), ODBC MS Access Driver 4.00.3513.00, other (cursor library, administrator etc.) ODBC files 3.510.3711.0 Database: Access 97, Jet 3.51.2026.0 (I have also Jet 4.00.2115.25 installed, but Access 97 uses older version) Table "guests" as described in Web SQL. Query "SecurityTest" as bellow: SELECT FirstName, LastName FROM Guests WHERE LastName = '|Shell("notepad.exe",1)|'; What happens: - If I open the query under MS Access, it opens Notepad app and shows the (empty) resultset. So far mentioned SQL "feature" works. - If I use MSQRY32.EXE to open the database (), nothing more happen than showing the resultset (empty one). The same if I run SQRY32 from within MS Excel ("Get Externala Data") - I created TEST.IDC file as bellow (and TEST.HTX, of course): Datasource: Web SQL Username: sa Template: details.htx SQLStatement: +SELECT FirstName, LastName +FROM SecurityTest and opened it through HTTP. The only result is an empty resultset. I checked list of processes (using TLIST.EXE) and notepad was not run. - I created TEST2.IDC file as bellow: Datasource: Web SQL Username: sa Template: details.htx SQLStatement: +SELECT FirstName, LastName +FROM Guests +WHERE LastName <> '|Shell("notepad.exe",1)|' the same. Notepad did not run. - I created very simple .ASP <% Param = Request.QueryString("Param") Data = Request.QueryString("Data") %> <% Set Conn1 = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection") 'strConn = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.3.51;Data Source=c:\temp\test.mdb;Mode=Read" strConn = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=c:\temp\test.mdb;Mode=Read" strSQL = "SELECT FirstName , LastName FROM SecurityTest" Conn1.Open strConn Set RSet1 = Conn1.Execute(strSQL) RSet1.Close Conn1.Close %> Notice that there are 2 connection strings, one is used and the other commented out. Upper connection string ("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.3.51") is UNSAFE. When I opened .ASP it started NOTEPAD.EXE in the context of WWW server. If WWW client can type-in any literal into HTML form, pass it to .ASP application (for exaple to be used in "WHERE" clause) and it remains non-parsed, then he/she will be able to run ANY code in the context of LocalSystem. If such a WWW server is also domain controller ... well, I'm bit scared to think about. Lower connection string ("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0") seems to be safe. I hope somebody can verify my tests. Most important point is that while .IDC files are using current ODBC it strongly depends on configuration of the system. If Jet 4 is installed and is used by ODBC, we are safe. The same applies to .ASP + ODBC. On the other side is .ASP + ADODB, where Jet engine can be explicitly selected. If Jet older than 4 is used then we have dangerous situation. Fortunately in .ASP we can easily parse strings passed >from WWW client (like Vittal Aithal did in JavaScript, but function will be run on the server side). Regards. Bronek Kozicki -------------------------------------------------- ICQ UID: 25404796 PGP KeyID: 0x4A30FA9A 07EE 10E6 978C 6B33 5208 094E BD61 9067 4A30 FA9A : -----Original Message----- : From: Bugtraq List [mailto:BUGTRAQ@NETSPACE.ORG] : Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 1999 9:00 PM : To: BUGTRAQ@NETSPACE.ORG : Subject: Advisory: NT ODBC Remote Compromise : : : --[ Advisory: NT ODBC Remote Compromise : : --[ By Matthew Astley [RCPS] http://www.fruitcake.demon.co.uk : --[ & Rain Forest Puppy [WireTrip] rfp@wiretrip.net : : --[ Brief Summary : : MS Jet database engine (which runs Access databases) allows an individual : to embed VBA in string expressions, which may allow the individual to run : commandline NT commands. This, combined with the flaw of IIS running ODBC : commands as system_local allow a remote attacker to have full control of : the system. Other webservers may be affected. Many MS Jet engines are : affected, but may not lead to elevated priviledges. Here's something that does not work for me. ODBC is not using Jet "feature" run embed VBA expression. It seems to use different database engine. : --[ Background : : ODBC allows a program flexible access to one or more relational databases : using SQL. If a client fails to quote correctly the meta characters in a : piece of data used in an SQL query, an attacker may be able to interfere : with the tables in the database (see MS SQL appension 'feature' in Phrack : 54, article 8). That's true, but not connected to the subject. Attacker seems not to use Jet, while "feature" exists just there. At least on my system. : However, the Microsoft "Jet" database engine (aka MS Access) provides some : extensions to SQL which allow the execution of VBA (Visual Basic for : Applications). This makes holes in meta character quoting code much more : interesting and dangerous. That's true. [cut] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 15:48:48 -0400 From: Russ To: NTBUGTRAQ@LISTSERV.NTBUGTRAQ.COM Subject: Re: Advisory: NT ODBC Remote Compromise I've had 2 individuals suggest that MDAC 2.1 solves the problems described by rfp@wiretrip.net regarding NT ODBC and Access. There is also another message on Bugtraq suggesting the same thing. Daryl Banttari [daryl@windsorcs.com] reports that Allaire's ColdFusion product is vulnerable to the same attack when using Access datasources, but appears not to be vulnerable after installing MDAC 2.1. I could put a direct link here to MDAC 2.1, but the fact is that you should not simply upgrade to it without understanding what it changes (and what effect those changes may have on your existing environment). So instead, I give you; http://www.microsoft.com/data/MDAC21info/MDAC21GAmanifest.htm which has a ton of information about the MDAC 2.1 release. Cheers, Russ - NTBugtraq Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 17:20:45 -0500 From: Jesper M. Johansson To: NTBUGTRAQ@LISTSERV.NTBUGTRAQ.COM Subject: Re: Advisory: NT ODBC Remote Compromise >I could put a direct link here to MDAC 2.1, but the fact is that you >should not simply upgrade to it without understanding what it changes >(and what effect those changes may have on your existing environment). >So instead, I give you; > >http://www.microsoft.com/data/MDAC21info/MDAC21GAmanifest.htm If you are using Excel data sources and are updating data in them you will want to keep in mind that upgrading to MDAC 2.1 will break those data sources. MDAC 2.1 no longer supports the update method for Excel data sources. This will, for example, cause Cold Fusion to access violate, and often causes crashes in InetSrv.exe if you are using IIS. Unfortunately, MS forgot to mention that in the document Russ pointed to. Jesper Jesper.M.Johansson-1@umn.edu Ph.D. Candidate, University of Minnesota Editor, SANS NT Digest MCSE , MCP + I http://ids.csom.umn.edu/jesper "Juris Praecepta sunt haec: honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere" Ulpian `

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