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HackTricks - Boitatech
  • HackTricks
  • About the author
  • Getting Started in Hacking
  • Pentesting Methodology
  • External Recon Methodology
    • Github Leaked Secrets
  • Phishing Methodology
    • Clone a Website
    • Detecting Phising
    • Phishing Documents
  • Exfiltration
  • Tunneling and Port Forwarding
  • Brute Force - CheatSheet
  • Search Exploits
  • Shells
    • Shells (Linux, Windows, MSFVenom)
      • MSFVenom - CheatSheet
      • Shells - Windows
      • Shells - Linux
      • Full TTYs
  • Linux/Unix
    • Checklist - Linux Privilege Escalation
    • Linux Privilege Escalation
      • PAM - Pluggable Authentication Modules
      • SELinux
      • Logstash
      • AppArmor
      • Containerd (ctr) Privilege Escalation
      • Docker Breakout
      • electron/CEF/chromium debugger abuse
      • Escaping from Jails
      • Cisco - vmanage
      • D-Bus Enumeration & Command Injection Privilege Escalation
      • Interesting Groups - Linux PE
        • lxd/lxc Group - Privilege escalation
      • ld.so exploit example
      • Linux Capabilities
      • NFS no_root_squash/no_all_squash misconfiguration PE
      • Payloads to execute
      • RunC Privilege Escalation
      • Seccomp
      • Splunk LPE and Persistence
      • SSH Forward Agent exploitation
      • Socket Command Injection
      • Wildcards Spare tricks
    • Useful Linux Commands
      • Bypass Bash Restrictions
    • Linux Environment Variables
  • MacOS
    • MacOS Security & Privilege Escalation
      • Mac OS Architecture
      • MacOS MDM
        • Enrolling Devices in Other Organisations
      • MacOS Protocols
      • MacOS Red Teaming
      • MacOS Serial Number
      • MacOS Apps - Inspecting, debugging and Fuzzing
  • Windows
    • Checklist - Local Windows Privilege Escalation
    • Windows Local Privilege Escalation
      • AppendData/AddSubdirectory permission over service registry
      • Create MSI with WIX
      • DPAPI - Extracting Passwords
      • SeImpersonate from High To System
      • Access Tokens
      • ACLs - DACLs/SACLs/ACEs
      • Dll Hijacking
      • From High Integrity to SYSTEM with Name Pipes
      • Integrity Levels
      • JAWS
      • JuicyPotato
      • Leaked Handle Exploitation
      • MSI Wrapper
      • Named Pipe Client Impersonation
      • PowerUp
      • Privilege Escalation Abusing Tokens
      • Privilege Escalation with Autoruns
      • RottenPotato
      • Seatbelt
      • SeDebug + SeImpersonate copy token
      • Windows C Payloads
    • Active Directory Methodology
      • Abusing Active Directory ACLs/ACEs
      • AD information in printers
      • ASREPRoast
      • BloodHound
      • Constrained Delegation
      • Custom SSP
      • DCShadow
      • DCSync
      • DSRM Credentials
      • Golden Ticket
      • Kerberos Authentication
      • Kerberoast
      • MSSQL Trusted Links
      • Over Pass the Hash/Pass the Key
      • Pass the Ticket
      • Password Spraying
      • Force NTLM Privileged Authentication
      • Privileged Accounts and Token Privileges
      • Resource-based Constrained Delegation
      • Security Descriptors
      • Silver Ticket
      • Skeleton Key
      • Unconstrained Delegation
    • NTLM
      • Places to steal NTLM creds
      • PsExec/Winexec/ScExec
      • SmbExec/ScExec
      • WmicExec
      • AtExec / SchtasksExec
      • WinRM
    • Stealing Credentials
      • Credentials Protections
      • Mimikatz
    • Authentication, Credentials, UAC and EFS
    • Basic CMD for Pentesters
    • Basic PowerShell for Pentesters
      • PowerView
    • AV Bypass
  • Mobile Apps Pentesting
    • Android APK Checklist
    • Android Applications Pentesting
      • Android Applications Basics
      • Android Task Hijacking
      • ADB Commands
      • APK decompilers
      • AVD - Android Virtual Device
      • Burp Suite Configuration for Android
      • content:// protocol
      • Drozer Tutorial
        • Exploiting Content Providers
      • Exploiting a debuggeable applciation
      • Frida Tutorial
        • Frida Tutorial 1
        • Frida Tutorial 2
        • Frida Tutorial 3
        • Objection Tutorial
      • Google CTF 2018 - Shall We Play a Game?
      • Inspeckage Tutorial
      • Intent Injection
      • Make APK Accept CA Certificate
      • Manual DeObfuscation
      • React Native Application
      • Reversing Native Libraries
      • Smali - Decompiling/[Modifying]/Compiling
      • Spoofing your location in Play Store
      • Webview Attacks
    • iOS Pentesting Checklist
    • iOS Pentesting
      • Basic iOS Testing Operations
      • Burp Suite Configuration for iOS
      • Extracting Entitlements From Compiled Application
      • Frida Configuration in iOS
      • iOS App Extensions
      • iOS Basics
      • iOS Custom URI Handlers / Deeplinks / Custom Schemes
      • iOS Hooking With Objection
      • iOS Protocol Handlers
      • iOS Serialisation and Encoding
      • iOS Testing Environment
      • iOS UIActivity Sharing
      • iOS Universal Links
      • iOS UIPasteboard
      • iOS WebViews
  • Pentesting
    • Pentesting Network
      • Spoofing LLMNR, NBT-NS, mDNS/DNS and WPAD and Relay Attacks
      • Spoofing SSDP and UPnP Devices with EvilSSDP
      • Wifi Attacks
        • Evil Twin EAP-TLS
      • Pentesting IPv6
      • Nmap Summary (ESP)
      • Network Protocols Explained (ESP)
      • IDS and IPS Evasion
      • DHCPv6
    • Pentesting JDWP - Java Debug Wire Protocol
    • Pentesting Printers
      • Accounting bypass
      • Buffer Overflows
      • Credentials Disclosure / Brute-Force
      • Cross-Site Printing
      • Document Processing
      • Factory Defaults
      • File system access
      • Firmware updates
      • Memory Access
      • Physical Damage
      • Software packages
      • Transmission channel
      • Print job manipulation
      • Print Job Retention
      • Scanner and Fax
    • Pentesting SAP
    • Pentesting Kubernetes
      • Enumeration from a Pod
      • Hardening Roles/ClusterRoles
      • Pentesting Kubernetes from the outside
    • 7/tcp/udp - Pentesting Echo
    • 21 - Pentesting FTP
      • FTP Bounce attack - Scan
      • FTP Bounce - Download 2ºFTP file
    • 22 - Pentesting SSH/SFTP
    • 23 - Pentesting Telnet
    • 25,465,587 - Pentesting SMTP/s
      • SMTP - Commands
    • 43 - Pentesting WHOIS
    • 53 - Pentesting DNS
    • 69/UDP TFTP/Bittorrent-tracker
    • 79 - Pentesting Finger
    • 80,443 - Pentesting Web Methodology
      • 403 & 401 Bypasses
      • AEM - Adobe Experience Cloud
      • Apache
      • Artifactory Hacking guide
      • Buckets
        • Firebase Database
        • AWS-S3
      • CGI
      • Code Review Tools
      • Drupal
      • Flask
      • Git
      • Golang
      • GraphQL
      • H2 - Java SQL database
      • IIS - Internet Information Services
      • JBOSS
      • Jenkins
      • JIRA
      • Joomla
      • JSP
      • Laravel
      • Moodle
      • Nginx
      • PHP Tricks (SPA)
        • PHP - Useful Functions & disable_functions/open_basedir bypass
          • disable_functions bypass - php-fpm/FastCGI
          • disable_functions bypass - dl function
          • disable_functions bypass - PHP 7.0-7.4 (*nix only)
          • disable_functions bypass - Imagick <= 3.3.0 PHP >= 5.4 Exploit
          • disable_functions - PHP 5.x Shellshock Exploit
          • disable_functions - PHP 5.2.4 ionCube extension Exploit
          • disable_functions bypass - PHP <= 5.2.9 on windows
          • disable_functions bypass - PHP 5.2.4 and 5.2.5 PHP cURL
          • disable_functions bypass - PHP safe_mode bypass via proc_open() and custom environment Exploit
          • disable_functions bypass - PHP Perl Extension Safe_mode Bypass Exploit
          • disable_functions bypass - PHP 5.2.3 - Win32std ext Protections Bypass
          • disable_functions bypass - PHP 5.2 - FOpen Exploit
          • disable_functions bypass - via mem
          • disable_functions bypass - mod_cgi
          • disable_functions bypass - PHP 4 >= 4.2.0, PHP 5 pcntl_exec
      • Python
      • Special HTTP headers
      • Spring Actuators
      • Symphony
      • Tomcat
      • Uncovering CloudFlare
      • VMWare (ESX, VCenter...)
      • Web API Pentesting
      • WebDav
      • werkzeug
      • Wordpress
      • XSS to RCE Electron Desktop Apps
    • 88tcp/udp - Pentesting Kerberos
      • Harvesting tickets from Windows
      • Harvesting tickets from Linux
    • 110,995 - Pentesting POP
    • 111/TCP/UDP - Pentesting Portmapper
    • 113 - Pentesting Ident
    • 123/udp - Pentesting NTP
    • 135, 593 - Pentesting MSRPC
    • 137,138,139 - Pentesting NetBios
    • 139,445 - Pentesting SMB
    • 143,993 - Pentesting IMAP
    • 161,162,10161,10162/udp - Pentesting SNMP
      • SNMP RCE
    • 194,6667,6660-7000 - Pentesting IRC
    • 264 - Pentesting Check Point FireWall-1
    • 389, 636, 3268, 3269 - Pentesting LDAP
    • 500/udp - Pentesting IPsec/IKE VPN
    • 502 - Pentesting Modbus
    • 512 - Pentesting Rexec
    • 513 - Pentesting Rlogin
    • 514 - Pentesting Rsh
    • 515 - Pentesting Line Printer Daemon (LPD)
    • 548 - Pentesting Apple Filing Protocol (AFP)
    • 554,8554 - Pentesting RTSP
    • 623/UDP/TCP - IPMI
    • 631 - Internet Printing Protocol(IPP)
    • 873 - Pentesting Rsync
    • 1026 - Pentesting Rusersd
    • 1080 - Pentesting Socks
    • 1098/1099/1050 - Pentesting Java RMI - RMI-IIOP
    • 1433 - Pentesting MSSQL - Microsoft SQL Server
    • 1521,1522-1529 - Pentesting Oracle TNS Listener
      • Oracle Pentesting requirements installation
      • TNS Poison
      • Remote stealth pass brute force
      • Oracle RCE & more
    • 1723 - Pentesting PPTP
    • 1883 - Pentesting MQTT (Mosquitto)
    • 2049 - Pentesting NFS Service
    • 2301,2381 - Pentesting Compaq/HP Insight Manager
    • 2375, 2376 Pentesting Docker
    • 3128 - Pentesting Squid
    • 3260 - Pentesting ISCSI
    • 3299 - Pentesting SAPRouter
    • 3306 - Pentesting Mysql
    • 3389 - Pentesting RDP
    • 3632 - Pentesting distcc
    • 3690 - Pentesting Subversion (svn server)
    • 4369 - Pentesting Erlang Port Mapper Daemon (epmd)
    • 5000 - Pentesting Docker Registry
    • 5353/UDP Multicast DNS (mDNS)
    • 5432,5433 - Pentesting Postgresql
    • 5601 - Pentesting Kibana
    • 5671,5672 - Pentesting AMQP
    • 5800,5801,5900,5901 - Pentesting VNC
    • 5984,6984 - Pentesting CouchDB
    • 5985,5986 - Pentesting WinRM
    • 6000 - Pentesting X11
    • 6379 - Pentesting Redis
    • 8009 - Pentesting Apache JServ Protocol (AJP)
    • 8089 - Splunkd
    • 9000 - Pentesting FastCGI
    • 9001 - Pentesting HSQLDB
    • 9042/9160 - Pentesting Cassandra
    • 9100 - Pentesting Raw Printing (JetDirect, AppSocket, PDL-datastream)
    • 9200 - Pentesting Elasticsearch
    • 10000 - Pentesting Network Data Management Protocol (ndmp)
    • 11211 - Pentesting Memcache
    • 15672 - Pentesting RabbitMQ Management
    • 27017,27018 - Pentesting MongoDB
    • 44818/UDP/TCP - Pentesting EthernetIP
    • 47808/udp - Pentesting BACNet
    • 50030,50060,50070,50075,50090 - Pentesting Hadoop
  • Pentesting Web
    • Web Vulnerabilities Methodology
    • Reflecting Techniques - PoCs and Polygloths CheatSheet
      • Web Vulns List
    • 2FA/OTP Bypass
    • Abusing hop-by-hop headers
    • Bypass Payment Process
    • Captcha Bypass
    • Cache Poisoning and Cache Deception
    • Clickjacking
    • Client Side Template Injection (CSTI)
    • Command Injection
    • Content Security Policy (CSP) Bypass
    • Cookies Hacking
    • CORS - Misconfigurations & Bypass
    • CRLF (%0D%0A) Injection
    • Cross-site WebSocket hijacking (CSWSH)
    • CSRF (Cross Site Request Forgery)
    • Dangling Markup - HTML scriptless injection
    • Deserialization
      • NodeJS - __proto__ & prototype Pollution
      • Java JSF ViewState (.faces) Deserialization
      • Java DNS Deserialization, GadgetProbe and Java Deserialization Scanner
      • Basic Java Deserialization (ObjectInputStream, readObject)
      • CommonsCollection1 Payload - Java Transformers to Rutime exec() and Thread Sleep
      • Basic .Net deserialization (ObjectDataProvider gadget, ExpandedWrapper, and Json.Net)
      • Exploiting __VIEWSTATE knowing the secrets
      • Exploiting __VIEWSTATE without knowing the secrets
    • Domain/Subdomain takeover
    • Email Header Injection
    • File Inclusion/Path traversal
      • phar:// deserialization
    • File Upload
      • PDF Upload - XXE and CORS bypass
    • Formula Injection
    • HTTP Request Smuggling / HTTP Desync Attack
    • H2C Smuggling
    • IDOR
    • JWT Vulnerabilities (Json Web Tokens)
    • NoSQL injection
    • LDAP Injection
    • Login Bypass
      • Login bypass List
    • OAuth to Account takeover
    • Open Redirect
    • Parameter Pollution
    • PostMessage Vulnerabilities
    • Race Condition
    • Rate Limit Bypass
    • Registration Vulnerabilities
    • Regular expression Denial of Service - ReDoS
    • Reset/Forgotten Password Bypass
    • SAML Attacks
      • SAML Basics
    • Server Side Inclusion/Edge Side Inclusion Injection
    • SQL Injection
      • MSSQL Injection
      • Oracle injection
      • PostgreSQL injection
        • dblink/lo_import data exfiltration
        • PL/pgSQL Password Bruteforce
        • Network - Privesc, Port Scanner and NTLM chanllenge response disclosure
        • Big Binary Files Upload (PostgreSQL)
        • RCE with PostgreSQL Extensions
      • MySQL injection
        • Mysql SSRF
      • SQLMap - Cheetsheat
        • Second Order Injection - SQLMap
    • SSRF (Server Side Request Forgery)
    • SSTI (Server Side Template Injection)
      • EL - Expression Language
    • Reverse Tab Nabbing
    • Unicode Normalization vulnerability
    • Web Tool - WFuzz
    • XPATH injection
    • XSLT Server Side Injection (Extensible Stylesheet Languaje Transformations)
    • XXE - XEE - XML External Entity
    • XSS (Cross Site Scripting)
      • PDF Injection
      • DOM XSS
      • Server Side XSS (Dynamic PDF)
      • XSS Tools
    • XSSI (Cross-Site Script Inclusion)
    • XS-Search
  • Forensics
    • Basic Forensic Methodology
      • Baseline Monitoring
      • Anti-Forensic Techniques
      • Docker Forensics
      • Image Adquisition & Mount
      • Linux Forensics
      • Malware Analysis
      • Memory dump analysis
        • Volatility - CheatSheet
      • Partitions/File Systems/Carving
        • EXT
        • File/Data Carving & Recovery Tools
        • NTFS
      • Pcap Inspection
        • DNSCat pcap analysis
        • USB Keystrokes
        • Wifi Pcap Analysis
        • Wireshark tricks
      • Specific Software/File-Type Tricks
        • .pyc
        • Browser Artifacts
        • Desofuscation vbs (cscript.exe)
        • Local Cloud Storage
        • Office file analysis
        • PDF File analysis
        • PNG tricks
        • Video and Audio file analysis
        • ZIPs tricks
      • Windows Artifacts
        • Windows Processes
        • Interesting Windows Registry Keys
  • A.I. Exploiting
    • BRA.I.NSMASHER Presentation
      • Basic Bruteforcer
      • Basic Captcha Breaker
      • BIM Bruteforcer
      • Hybrid Malware Classifier Part 1
  • Blockchain
    • Blockchain & Crypto Currencies
  • Courses and Certifications Reviews
    • INE Courses and eLearnSecurity Certifications Reviews
  • Cloud Security
    • Cloud security review
    • AWS Security
  • Physical attacks
    • Physical Attacks
    • Escaping from KIOSKs
      • Show file extensions
  • Reversing
    • Reversing Tools & Basic Methods
      • Angr
        • Angr - Examples
      • Z3 - Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT)
      • Cheat Engine
      • Blobrunner
    • Common API used in Malware
    • Cryptographic/Compression Algorithms
      • Unpacking binaries
    • Word Macros
  • Exploiting
    • Linux Exploiting (Basic) (SPA)
      • Format Strings Template
      • ROP - call sys_execve
      • ROP - Leaking LIBC address
        • ROP - Leaking LIBC template
      • Bypassing Canary & PIE
      • Ret2Lib
      • Fusion
    • Exploiting Tools
      • PwnTools
    • Windows Exploiting (Basic Guide - OSCP lvl)
  • Cryptography
    • Certificates
    • Cipher Block Chaining CBC-MAC
    • Crypto CTFs Tricks
    • Electronic Code Book (ECB)
    • Hash Length Extension Attack
    • Padding Oracle
    • RC4 - Encrypt&Decrypt
  • BACKDOORS
    • Merlin
    • Empire
    • Salseo
    • ICMPsh
  • Stego
    • Stego Tricks
    • Esoteric languages
  • MISC
    • Basic Python
      • venv
      • Bypass Python sandboxes
      • Magic Methods
      • Web Requests
      • Bruteforce hash (few chars)
    • Other Big References
  • TODO
    • More Tools
    • MISC
    • Pentesting DNS
  • Burp Suite
  • Other Web Tricks
  • Interesting HTTP
  • Emails Vulnerabilities
  • Android Forensics
  • TR-069
  • 6881/udp - Pentesting BitTorrent
  • CTF Write-ups
    • challenge-0521.intigriti.io
    • Try Hack Me
      • hc0n Christmas CTF - 2019
      • Pickle Rick
  • 1911 - Pentesting fox
  • Online Platforms with API
  • Stealing Sensitive Information Disclosure from a Web
  • Post Exploitation
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On this page
  • Task, Back Stack and Foreground Activities
  • Android Multi-tasking - One Task
  • Android Multi-tasking - Several Tasks
  • Task Control Knobs
  • Task affinity attack
  • Task affinity and Launch Modes
  • Attack
  • Preventing task hijacking
  • References

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  1. Mobile Apps Pentesting
  2. Android Applications Pentesting

Android Task Hijacking

PreviousAndroid Applications BasicsNextADB Commands

Last updated 3 years ago

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Task, Back Stack and Foreground Activities

A task is a collection of activities that users interact with when performing a certain job. The activities are arranged in a stack—the back stack)—in the order in which each activity is opened.

The activity that is displayed on the screen is called a foreground activity and its task is called the foreground task. At a time, only one foreground task is visible on the screen.

This is some simple activity flow:

  • There's only Activity 1 in the foreground.

  • Activity 2 is started which pushes Activity 1 to the Back Stack. Now Activity 2 is in the foreground.

  • Activity 3 is started which pushes both Activity 1 and 2 to the Back Stack.

  • Now when Activity 3 is closed. The previous activity i.e., 2 is brought automatically to the foreground. This is how task navigation works in Android.

Android Multi-tasking - One Task

One task is composed by several activities

Android Multi-tasking - Several Tasks

Android usually manages several tasks

Task Control Knobs

Task affinity attack

Task affinity and Launch Modes

Task affinity is an attribute that is defined in each <activity> tag in the AndroidManifest.xml file. It describes which Task an Activity prefers to join. By default, every activity has the same affinity as the package name.

We'll be using this when creating our PoC app.

<activity android:taskAffinity=""/>
  1. standard (Default)

  2. singleTop

  3. singleTask

  4. singleInstance

When the launchMode is set to singleTask, the Android system evaluates three possibilities and one of them is the reason why our attack is possible. Here they are -

  • If the Activity instance already exists: Android resumes the existing instance instead of creating a new one. It means that there is at most one activity instance in the system under this mode.

  • If creating a new activity instance is necessary: The Activity Manager Service (AMS) selects a task to host the newly created instance by finding a “matching” one in all existing tasks. An activity “matches” a task if they have the same task affinity. This is the reason why we can specify the same task affinity as the vulnerable app in our malware/attacker's app so it launches in their task instead of creating it's own.

  • Without finding a “matching” task: The AMS creates a new task and makes the new activity instance the root activity of the newly created task.

Attack

The victim needs to have the malicious app installed in his device. Then, he needs to open it before opening the vulnerable application. Then, when the vulnerable application is opened, the malicious application will be opened instead. If this malicious application presents the same login as the vulnerable application the user won't have any means to know that he is putting his credentials in a malicious application.

Preventing task hijacking

Setting taskAffinity="" can be a quick fix for this issue. The launch mode can also be set to singleInstance if the app does not want other activities to join tasks belonging to it. A custom onBackPressed() function can also be added, to override the default behaviour.

References

Launch modes allow you to define how a new instance of an activity is associated with the current task. The attribute specifies an instruction on how the activity should be launched into a task. There are four different Launch Modes:

You can find an attack implemented here: ****

********

********

launchMode
https://github.com/az0mb13/Task_Hijacking_Strandhogg
https://blog.dixitaditya.com/android-task-hijacking/
https://blog.takemyhand.xyz/2021/02/android-task-hijacking-with.html