c0d3 :: j0rg3

Mucking about with a fresh copy of Kali brings to attention that it’s packaged with an Armitage that doesn’t correctly work.

I know what you’re thinking… Good. Type the commands into Msfconsole like a real man, y’uh lazy good-fer-naught! And, in practice, that was my immediate solution. But I can’t resist a good tinker when things are misbehaving.

I was anticipating that the problem would be thoroughly solved when I ixquicked it. That was partially correct. Surprised, however, when apt-get update && apt-get upgrade didn’t fix the issue. More surprised at the age of the issue. Most surprised that I could see lots of evidence that users have been plagued by this issue — but no clear work arounds were quickly found.

Guess what we’re doing today?

Okay. The issue is quite minor but just enough to be heartbreaking to the fledgling pentester trying to get a VM off the ground.

In brief, the owner of Armitage’s Github explains:

The MSF Scans feature in Armitage parses output from Metasploit’s portscan/tcp module and uses these results to build a list of targets it should run various Metasploit auxiliary modules against. A recent-ish update to the Metasploit Framework changed the format of the portscan/tcp module output. A patch to fix this issue just needs to account for the new format of the portscan/tcp module.

That is, a colon makes it into the input for the Msfconsole command to define RHOSTS. I.e.: set RHOSTS 172.16.223.150: - 172.16.223.150

An other kind coder tweaked the regex and submitted the patch and pull request, which was successfully incorporated into the project.

Sadly, things have stalled out there. So if this problem is crippling your rig, let’s fix it!

We just want a fresh copy of the project.
root@kali:~/armitage# git clone https://github.com/rsmudge/armitage

Cloning into ‘armitage’…
remote: Counting objects: 7564, done.
remote: Total 7564 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 7564
Receiving objects: 100% (7564/7564), 47.12 MiB | 2.91 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (5608/5608), done.

Kali is Debian-based and we’re going to need Apache Ant:
root@kali:~/armitage# apt-get install ant

Then, we’ll build our new fella:
root@kali:~/armitage# cd armitage
root@kali:~/armitage# ./package.sh

Buildfile: /root/test/armitage/build.xml

clean:

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds
Buildfile: /root/test/armitage/build.xml

init:
[mkdir] Created dir: /root/test/armitage/bin

compile:
[javac] Compiling 111 source files to /root/test/armitage/bin
[javac] depend attribute is not supported by the modern compiler
[javac] Note: /root/test/armitage/src/ui/MultiFrame.java uses or overrides a deprecated API.
[javac] Note: Recompile with -Xlint:deprecation for details.
[javac] Note: Some input files use unchecked or unsafe operations.
[javac] Note: Recompile with -Xlint:unchecked for details.

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 2 seconds
Buildfile: /root/test/armitage/build.xml

init:

compile:

jar:
[unzip] Expanding: /root/test/armitage/lib/sleep.jar into /root/test/armitage/bin
[unzip] Expanding: /root/test/armitage/lib/jgraphx.jar into /root/test/armitage/bin
[unzip] Expanding: /root/test/armitage/lib/msgpack-0.6.12-devel.jar into /root/test/armitage/bin
[unzip] Expanding: /root/test/armitage/lib/postgresql-9.1-901.jdbc4.jar into /root/test/armitage/bin
[unzip] Expanding: /root/test/armitage/lib/javassist-3.15.0-GA.jar into /root/test/armitage/bin
[copy] Copying 4 files to /root/test/armitage/bin/scripts-cortana
[jar] Building jar: /root/test/armitage/armitage.jar
[jar] Building jar: /root/test/armitage/cortana.jar

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 1 second
armitage/
armitage/readme.txt
armitage/teamserver
armitage/cortana.jar
armitage/armitage.jar
armitage/armitage-logo.png
armitage/armitage
armitage/whatsnew.txt
adding: readme.txt (deflated 55%)
adding: armitage.exe (deflated 49%)
adding: cortana.jar (deflated 5%)
adding: armitage.jar (deflated 5%)
adding: whatsnew.txt (deflated 65%)
armitage/
armitage/readme.txt
armitage/teamserver
armitage/cortana.jar
armitage/armitage.jar
armitage/armitage-logo.png
armitage/armitage
armitage/whatsnew.txt
Archive: ../../armitage.zip
inflating: readme.txt
inflating: armitage.exe
inflating: cortana.jar
inflating: armitage.jar
inflating: whatsnew.txt

And here, best I can guess from messages read, is where a lot of people are running into trouble. We have successfully produced our new working copy of armitage. However, it is in our own local directory and will not be run if we just enter the command: armitage

Let’s review how to figure out what we want to do about that.

First, we want to verify what happens when we run the command armitage.
root@kali:~/armitage# which armitage

/usr/bin/armitage

Good! Let’s check and see what that does!
root@kali:~/armitage# head /usr/bin/armitage

#!/bin/sh

cd /usr/share/armitage/
exec ./armitage “$@”

Almost there! It’s running /usr/share/armitage/armitage with whatever variables we’ve passed in. We’ll check that out.
root@kali:~/armitage# head /usr/share/armitage/armitage

#!/bin/sh
java -XX:+AggressiveHeap -XX:+UseParallelGC -jar armitage.jar $@

We have enough information to assemble a solution.

I trust that the people behind Kali and Armitage will get this corrected so I don’t want to suggest a solution that would replace the armitage command and prevent an updated version from running later. So, let’s just make a temporary replacement?

Hereafter, we can use the command ‘tmparmitage’ (either CLI or ALT-F2) to run our fresh version until things catch up.

And, of course, to save you the time, weary hacker:

Download here:
    armitage_quick_fix.sh

In an effort to promote practical privacy measures, when I send people links to search engines, I choose ixquick. However, my personal settings submit my search terms via POST data rather than GET, meaning that the search terms aren’t in the URL.

Recently, I’ve found myself hand-crafting links for people and then I paste the link into a new tab, to make sure I didn’t fat-finger anything. Not a problem per se, but the technique leaves room for a bit more efficiency. So I’ve taken the ‘A Search Box on Your Website’ tool offered by ixquick and slightly modified the code it offers, to use GET variables, in a new tab where I can then copy the URL and provide the link to others.

You can test, or use, it here — I may add it (or a variant that just provides you the link) to the navigation bar above. First, though, I’m going to mention the need to the outstanding minds at ixquick because it would make a LOT more sense on their page than on mine.

In this writer’s opinion, it is vitally important that we take reasonable measures now to help insure anonymity, lest we create a situation where privacy no longer exists, and the simple want of, becomes suspicious.

Here’s how to configure your browser to automatically use a search engine that respects your privacy.

Chrome:

1. Click Settings.
2. Click “Set pages” in the “On startup” section.
3. Enter https://ixquick.com/eng/ in the “Add a new page” text field.
4. Click OK.
5. Click “Manage search engines…”
6. At the bottom of the “Search Engines” dialog, click in the “Add a new search engine” field.
7. Enter
   ixquick
ixquick.com
https://ixquick.com/do/search?lui=english&language=english&cat=web&query=%s
8. Click “Make Default”.
9. Click “Done”.

Firefox:

1. Click the Tools Menu.
2. Click Options.
3. Click the General tab.
4. In “When Firefox Starts” dropdown, select “Show my home page”.
5. Enter https://ixquick.com/eng/ in the “Home Page” text field.
6. Click one of the English options here.
7. Check box for “Start using it right away.”
8. Click “Add”.

Opera:

1. Click “Manage Search Engines
2. Click “Add”
3. Enter
   Name: ixquick
   Keyword: x
   Address: https://ixquick.com/do/search?lui=english&language=english&cat=web&query=%s
4. Check “Use as default search engine”
5. Click “OK”

Internet Explorer:

  _     ___  _ __        ___   _ _____ ___ 
 | |   / _ \| |\ \      / / | | |_   _|__ \
 | |  | | | | | \ \ /\ / /| | | | | |   / /
 | |__| |_| | |__\ V  V / | |_| | | |  |_| 
 |_____\___/|_____\_/\_/   \___/  |_|  (_) 

(This is not a good strategy for privacy.)

Congratulations!

You are now one step closer to not having every motion on the Internet recorded.

This is a relatively small measure, though. You can improve your resistance to prying eyes (e.g., browser fingerprinting) by using the Torbrowser Bundle, or even better, Tails, and routing your web usage through Tor, i2p, or FreeNet.

If you would like more on subjects like anonymyzing, privacy and security then drop me a line via email or Bitmessage me: BM-2D9tDkYEJSTnEkGDKf7xYA5rUj2ihETxVR

Working on remote servers, some tools are practically ubiquitous — while others are harder to come by. Even if you’ve the authority to install your preferred tools on every server you visit, it’s not always something you want to do. If you’ve hopped on to a friend’s server just to troubleshoot a problem, there is little reason to install tools that your friend is not in the habit of using. Some servers, for security reasons, are very tightly locked down to include only a core set of tools, to complicate the job of any prying intruders. Or perhaps it is a machine that you normally use through a graphical interface but on this occasion you need to work from the CLI.

These are very compelling reasons to get comfortable, at the very least, with tools like Vim, mail, grep and sed. Eventually, you’re likely to encounter a situation where only the classic tools are available. If you aren’t competent with those tools, you’ll end up facing the obstacle of how to get files from the server to your local environment where you can work and, subsequently, how to get the files back when you’re done. In a secured environment, this may not be possible without violating protocols.

Let’s take a look at how we can build a makeshift system monitor using some common tools. This particular configuration is for a server running PHP, MySQL and has the tools Htop and mytop installed. These can easily be replaced with top and a small script to SHOW FULL PROCESSLIST, if needed. The point here is illustrative, to provide a template to be modified according to each specific environment.

(Note: I generally prefer tmux to Gnu Screen but screen is the tool more likely to be already installed, so we’ll use it for this example.)

We’re going to make a set of windows, by a configuration file, to help us keep tabs on what is happening in this system. In so doing, we’ll be using the well-known tools less and watch. More specifically, less +F which tells less to “scroll forward”. Other words, less will continue to read the file making sure any new lines are added to the display. You can exit this mode with CTRL+c, search the file (/), quit(q) or get back into scroll-forward mode with another uppercase F.

Using watch, we’ll include the “-d” flag which tells watch we want to highlight any changes (differences).

We will create a configuration file for screen by typing:

> vim monitor.screenrc

In the file, paste the following:

# Screen setup for system monitoring
# screen -c monitor.screenrc
hardstatus alwayslastline
hardstatus string '%{= kG}[ %{G}%H %{g}][%= %{=kw}%?%-Lw%?%{r}(%{W}%n*%f%t%?(%u)%?%{r})%{w}%?%+Lw%?%?%= %{g}][%{B}%Y-%m-%d %{W}%c %{g}]'

screen -t htop 0 htop
screen -t mem 1 watch -d "free -t -m"
screen -t mpstat 2 watch -d "mpstat -A"
screen -t iostat 3 watch -d "iostat"
screen -t w 4 watch -d "w"
screen -t messages 5 less +F /var/log/messages
screen -t warn 6 less +F /var/log/warn
screen -t database 7 less +F /srv/www/log/db_error
screen -t mytop 8 mytop
screen -t php 9 less +F /srv/www/log/php_error


(Note: -t sets the title, then the window number, followed by the command running in that window)

Save the file (:wq) or, if you’d prefer, you can grab a copy by right-clicking and saving this file.

Then we will execute screen using this configuration, as noted in the comment:

> screen -c monitor.screenrc

Then you can switch between windows using CTRL+a, n (next) or CTRL+a, p (previous).

I use this technique on my own computers, running in a TTY different from the one used by X. If the graphical interface should get flaky, I can simply switch to that TTY (e.g., CTRL+ALT+F5) to see what things are going on — and take corrective actions, if needed.

There may be times when you find your Git repository burdened with scads of untracked files left aside while twiddling, testing bug patches, or what-have-youse.

For the especially scatter-brained among us, these things can go unchecked until a day when the useful bits of a git status scroll off the screen due to utterly unimportant stuff. Well, hopefully unimportant.

But we’d better not just cleave away everything that we haven’t checked in. You wonder:
What if there’s something important in one of those files?

You are so right!

Let’s fix this!

Firstly, we want a solution that’s reproducible. Only want to invent this wheel once, right?

Let’s begin with the play-by-play:

Git, we want a list of what isn’t tracked: git ls-files -o --exclude-standard -z

We’ll back these files up in our home directory (~), using CPIO but we don’t want a poorly-named directory or finding anything will become its own obstacle. So we’ll take use the current date (date +%Y-%m-%d), directory (pwd) and branch we’re using (git branch) and we’ll twist all of it into a meaningful, but appropriate, directory name using sed. git ls-files -o --exclude-standard -z | cpio -pmdu ~/untracked-git-backup-`date +%Y-%m-%d`.`pwd | sed 's,^\(.*/\)\?\([^/]*\),\2,'`.`git branch | grep "*" | sed "s/* //"`/

Ahhhh… Much better. Is there anything left out? Perhaps. What if we decide that moving these files away was a mistake? The kind of mistake that breaks something. If we realize right away, it’s easily-enough undone. But what if we break something and don’t notice for a week or two? It’d probably be best if we had an automated script to put things back the way they were. Let’s do that.

Simple enough. We’ll just take the opposite commands and echo them into a script to be used in case of emergency.

Create the restore script (restore.sh), to excuse faulty memory: echo "(cd ~/untracked-git-backup-`date +%Y-%m-%d`.`pwd | sed 's,^\(.*/\)\?\([^/]*\),\2,'`.`git branch | grep "*" | sed "s/* //"`/; find . -type f \( ! -iname 'restore.sh' \) | cpio -pdm `pwd`)" > ~/untracked-git-backup-`date +%Y-%m-%d`.`pwd | sed 's,^\(.*/\)\?\([^/]*\),\2,'`.`git branch | grep "*" | sed "s/* //"`/restore.sh

Make the restore script executable: chmod u+x ~/untracked-git-backup-`date +%Y-%m-%d`.`pwd | sed 's,^\(.*/\)\?\([^/]*\),\2,'`.`git branch | grep "*" | sed "s/* //"`/restore.sh

Lastly, the magic, compressed into one line that will stop if any command does not report success: a='untracked-git-backup-'`date +%Y-%m-%d`.`pwd | sed 's,^\(.*/\)\?\([^/]*\),\2,'`.`git branch | grep "*" | sed "s/* //"`; git ls-files -o --exclude-standard -z | cpio -pmdu ~/$a/ && git clean -d -f && echo "(cd ~/$a/; find . -type f \( ! -iname 'restore.sh' \) | cpio -pdm `pwd`)" > ~/$a/restore.sh && chmod +x ~/$a/restore.sh; unset a