File Inclusion/Path traversal
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Remote File Inclusion (RFI): The file is loaded from a remote server (Best: You can write the code and the server will execute it). In php this is disabled by default (allow_url_include). Local File Inclusion (LFI): The sever loads a local file.
The vulnerability occurs when the user can control in some way the file that is going to be load by the server.
Vulnerable PHP functions: require, require_once, include, include_once
A interesting tool to exploit this vulnerability:
Mixing several *nix LFI lists and adding more paths I have created this one:
Try also to change / for \
Try also to add ../../../../../
Merging several lists I have created:
Try also to change / for \
Try also to remove C:/ and add ../../../../../
Check the LFI list of linux.
Bypass the append more chars at the end of the provided string (bypass of: $_GET['param']."php")
This is solved since PHP 5.4
You could use non-standard encondings like double URL encode (and others):
Maybe the back-end is checking the folder path:
Bypass the append of more chars at the end of the provided string (bypass of: $_GET['param']."php")
Always try to start the path with a fake directory (a/).
This vulnerability was corrected in PHP 5.3.
The part "php://filter" is case insensitive
Can be chained with a compression wrapper for large files.
To read the comppression data you need to decode the base64 and read the resulting data using:
NOTE: Wrappers can be chained
Upload a Zip file with a PHPShell inside and access it.
Fun fact: you can trigger an XSS and bypass the Chrome Auditor with : http://example.com/index.php?page=data:application/x-httpd-php;base64,PHN2ZyBvbmxvYWQ9YWxlcnQoMSk+
Note that this protocol is restricted by php configurations allow_url_open and allow_url_include
Expect has to be activated. You can execute code using this.
Specify your payload in the POST parameters
A .phar file can be also used to execute PHP code if the web is using some function like include to load the file.
And you can compile the phar executing the following line:
A file called test.phar will be generated that you can use to abuse the LFI.
If the LFI is just reading the file and not executing the php code inside of it, for example using functions like file_get_contents(), fopen(), file() or file_exists(), md5_file(), filemtime() or filesize(). You can try to abuse a deserialization occurring when reading a file using the phar protocol. For more information read the following post:
If you encounter a difficult LFI that appears to be filtering traversal strings such as ".." and responding with something along the lines of "Hacking attempt" or "Nice try!", an 'assert' injection payload may work.
A payload like this:
will successfully exploit PHP code for a "file" parameter that looks like this:
It's also possible to get RCE in a vulnerable "assert" statement using the system() function:
Be sure to URL-encode payloads before you send them.
If the Apache server is vulnerable to LFI inside the include function you could try to access to /var/log/apache2/access.log, set inside the user agent or inside a GET parameter a php shell like <?php system($_GET['c']); ?> and execute code using the "c" GET parameter.
Note that if you use double quotes for the shell instead of simple quotes, the double quotes will be modified for the string "quote;", PHP will throw an error there and nothing else will be executed.
This could also be done in other logs but be careful, the code inside the logs could be URL encoded and this could destroy the Shell. The header authorisation "basic" contains "user:password" in Base64 and it is decoded inside the logs. The PHPShell could be inserted inside this header. Other possible log paths:
Send a mail to a internal account (user@localhost) containing <?php echo system($_REQUEST["cmd"]); ?> and access to the mail /var/mail/USER&cmd=whoami
Upload a lot of shells (for example : 100)
Like a log file, send the payload in the User-Agent, it will be reflected inside the /proc/self/environ file
If you can upload a file, just inject the shell payload in it (e.g : <?php system($_GET['c']); ?> ).
In order to keep the file readable it is best to inject into the metadata of the pictures/doc/pdf
Upload a ZIP file containing a PHP shell compressed and access:
Check if the website use PHP Session (PHPSESSID)
In PHP these sessions are stored into /var/lib/php5/sess\[PHPSESSID]_ files
Set the cookie to <?php system('cat /etc/passwd');?>
Use the LFI to include the PHP session file
If ssh is active check which user is being used (/proc/self/status & /etc/passwd) and try to access <HOME>/.ssh/id_rsa
The logs of this FTP server are stored in /var/log/vsftpd.log. If you have a LFI and can access a exposed vsftpd server, you could try to login setting the PHP payload in the username and then access the logs using the LFI.
To exploit this vulnerability you need: A LFI vulnerability, a page where phpinfo() is displayed, "file_uploads = on" and the server has to be able to write in the "/tmp" directory.
You need to fix the exploit (change => for =>). To do so you can do:
You have to change also the payload at the beginning of the exploit (for a php-rev-shell for example), the REQ1 (this should point to the phpinfo page and should have the padding included, i.e.: REQ1="""POST /install.php?mode=phpinfo&a="""+padding+""" HTTP/1.1\r), and LFIREQ (this should point to the LFI vulnerability, i.e.: LFIREQ="""GET /info?page=%s%%00 HTTP/1.1\r -- Check the double "%" when exploiting null char)
If uploads are allowed in PHP and you try to upload a file, this files is stored in a temporal directory until the server has finished processing the request, then this temporary files is deleted.
Then, if have found a LFI vulnerability in the web server you can try to guess the name of the temporary file created and exploit a RCE accessing the temporary file before it is deleted.
In Windows the files are usually stored in C:\Windows\temp\php<<
In linux the name of the file use to be random and located in /tmp. As the name is random, it is needed to extract from somewhere the name of the temporal file and access it before it is deleted. This can be done reading the value of the variable $_FILES inside the content of the function "phpconfig()".
phpinfo()
PHP uses a buffer of 4096B and when it is full, it is send to the client. Then the client can send a lot of big requests (using big headers) uploading a php reverse shell, wait for the first part of the phpinfo() to be returned (where the name of the temporary file is) and try to access the temp file before the php server deletes the file exploiting a LFI vulnerability.
Python script to try to bruteforce the name (if length = 6)
A list that uses several techniques to find the file /etc/password (to check if the vulnerability exists) can be found
A list that uses several techniques to find the file /boot.ini (to check if the vulnerability exists) can be found
All the examples are for Local File Inclusion but could be applied to Remote File Inclusion also (page=.
Here’s list of top 25 parameters that could be vulnerable to local file inclusion (LFI) vulnerabilities (from ):
Check more possible.
Fuzzing wordlist:
Include , with $PID = PID of the process (can be brute forced) and $FD the file descriptor (can be brute forced too)
Tutorial HTB: