The goal of this project was to conduct a security audit of a blog recently launched by Ackme Support Incorporated, identifying any critical vulnerabilities before the site goes public. The task involved finding a way to remotely execute code and gain access to the target system.
The goal of this project was to conduct a security audit of a blog recently launched by Ackme Support Incorporated, identifying any critical vulnerabilities before the site goes public. The task involved finding a way to remotely execute code and gain access to the target system.
Environment & Setup
Target system: Vulnerable virtual machine
Application: Fuel CMS
Version: 1.4
Exploit used: CVE-2018-16763
Tools:
Python exploit from GitHub
nc (netcat) — to receive the reverse shell
Attack Steps
1. Application Identification
After deploying the vulnerable machine and accessing it via the web interface, it was determined that the site was running Fuel CMS version 1.4, which is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution (RCE).
2. Finding a Working Exploit
Initial attempts using scripts from Exploit-DB resulted in runtime errors. After additional research, a working exploit was found on GitHub:
https://gist.github.com/anir0y/8529960c18e212948b0e40ed1fb18d6d#file-fuel-cms-py
The script was saved locally as fuel-cms.py.
3. Setting Up a Reverse Shell Listener
On the attacking machine, Netcat was used to listen for incoming reverse shell connections on port 8081:
nc -lvnp 8081
4. Launching the Exploit
The Python exploit was executed with the victim’s IP address. After entering the shell_me command, a reverse shell was successfully established.
5. Capturing the Flag
Once access was gained, the following commands were used to retrieve the flag:
cd /home/ubuntu
cat flag.txt
Flag: THM{ACKME_BLOG_HACKED}
Conclusion
This project successfully demonstrated how to exploit a known vulnerability in Fuel CMS to gain remote shell access. Although the initial scripts failed, persistence and exploring alternative sources (such as GitHub) led to a successful exploitation.
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