3 ms·

> "you have Linux command execution, how do you run native code?" I was going to ask you what the precise situation is in which you'd apply the ideas from the

> "you have Linux command execution, how do you run native code?" I was going to ask you what the precise situation is in which you'd apply the ideas from the blog post as I don't know what exactly is meant by "process injection". I think the article would benefit from providing a little bit more background for us non-hackers / non-pentesters. Still, very interesting article – thank you! PS: The article says > you need a writable location on disk; this is not always true in e.g. read-only chroots, filesystems, containers, etc Couldn't you create a temporary file in-memory (e.g. in /dev/shm or in some tmpfs), make it executable (+x) and then execute it?

joe_v 3y ago
Apologies it's a little scattered. Roughly it's about dealing with situations where you can execute a command but now want to run a native executable, and how much noise such a thing will make in the presence of monitoring. > Couldn't you create a temporary file in-memory (e.g. in /dev/shm or in some tmpfs), make it executable (+x) and then execute it? It all depends on how your environment is set up: whether a tmpfs or shm device is mounted and writable by your user is up to the admin. For example, on many embedded devices you often want to avoid writes to prevent any sort of filesystem wear, or because you have a write-once media like a ROM; so the whole fs will be mounted readonly. With chroots it's best practice to provide a minimal environment - unless tempfiles are needed there will usually not be a /tmp. Try `docker run --read-only -ti ubuntu bash` as another example: ``` root@9302f159e0e0:/tmp# touch a touch: cannot touch 'a': Read-only file system ```
- codethief 3y ago
  My apologies for the delay, Joe, I was on vacation. Now that I'm home, I gave this a try but at least on my machine writing to /dev/shm/ works as I remembered, even with --read-only: $ docker run --read-only -ti ubuntu bash root@3dfdab770505:/# echo "bar" > /dev/shm/foo root@3dfdab770505:/# cat /dev/shm/foo bar So, again, couldn't you just write your binary to /dev/shm and execute it?
  - infotogivenm 3y ago
    It is fairly common to have noexec on /dev/shm; filesystem configurations are always up to the admin so they could feasibly set anything.
    - codethief 3y ago
      Thanks for reminding me of noexec; I'm no Linux security expert by any means, so I was merely trying to figure out what's possible and what's not. It looks like mounting /dev/shm with noexec is not that common, though, is it? See e.g. https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/670362/mounting-dev-shm-with-noexec https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/670362/mounting-dev... More generally, it regularly blows my mind how hard it is to harden a Linux installation, and how many pitfalls and caveats there are.

joe_v 3y ago

Apologies it's a little scattered. Roughly it's about dealing with situations where you can execute a command but now want to run a native executable, and how much noise such a thing will make in the presence of monitoring. > Couldn't you create a temporary file in-memory (e.g. in /dev/shm or in some tmpfs), make it executable (+x) and then execute it? It all depends on how your environment is set up: whether a tmpfs or shm device is mounted and writable by your user is up to the admin. For example, on many embedded devices you often want to avoid writes to prevent any sort of filesystem wear, or because you have a write-once media like a ROM; so the whole fs will be mounted readonly. With chroots it's best practice to provide a minimal environment - unless tempfiles are needed there will usually not be a /tmp. Try `docker run --read-only -ti ubuntu bash` as another example: ``` root@9302f159e0e0:/tmp# touch a touch: cannot touch 'a': Read-only file system ```

codethief 3y ago
My apologies for the delay, Joe, I was on vacation. Now that I'm home, I gave this a try but at least on my machine writing to /dev/shm/ works as I remembered, even with --read-only: $ docker run --read-only -ti ubuntu bash root@3dfdab770505:/# echo "bar" > /dev/shm/foo root@3dfdab770505:/# cat /dev/shm/foo bar So, again, couldn't you just write your binary to /dev/shm and execute it?
- infotogivenm 3y ago
  It is fairly common to have noexec on /dev/shm; filesystem configurations are always up to the admin so they could feasibly set anything.
  - codethief 3y ago
    Thanks for reminding me of noexec; I'm no Linux security expert by any means, so I was merely trying to figure out what's possible and what's not. It looks like mounting /dev/shm with noexec is not that common, though, is it? See e.g. https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/670362/mounting-dev-shm-with-noexec https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/670362/mounting-dev... More generally, it regularly blows my mind how hard it is to harden a Linux installation, and how many pitfalls and caveats there are.