CVE-2021-40444/README.md

# Fully Weaponized CVE-2021-40444

Malicious docx generator to exploit CVE-2021-40444 (Microsoft Office Word Remote Code Execution), works with arbitrary DLL files.

# Background

Although many PoC are already around the internet, I guessed to give myself a run to weaponizing this vulnerability,
as what I found available lacked valuable information that it's worth sharing, also considering Microsoft already
released a patch for this vulnerability.

So far, the only valuable resources I've seen to create a fully working generator are:
* [Blog by Ret2Pwn](https://xret2pwn.github.io//CVE-2021-40444-Analysis-and-Exploit/)
* [Twit by j00sean](https://twitter.com/j00sean/status/1437390861499838466)

The above resources outline a lot of the requirements needed to create a full chain. To avoid repeating too much
unnecessary information, I'll just summarize the relevant details.

### Exploit Chain
1. Docx opened
2. Relationship stored in document.xml.rels points to malicious html
3. IE preview is launched to open the HTML link
4. JScript within the HTML contains an object pointing to a CAB file, and an iframe pointing to an INF file,
   prefixed with the ".cpl:" directive
5. The cab file is opened, the INF file stored in the %TEMP%\Low directory
6. Due to a Path traversal (ZipSlip) vulnerability in the CAB, it's possible to store the INF in %TEMP%
7. Then, the INF file is opened with the ".cpl:" directive, causing the side-loading of the INF file via rundll32 
  (if this is a DLL)

### Overlooked Requirements

There are quite a bit of overlooked requirements for this exploit to work, which caused even good PoCs, like
[the one by lockedbyte](https://github.com/lockedbyte/CVE-2021-40444), to fail working properly.

Maybe nobody explicitly "released" them to avoid the vulnerability to be exploited more. But now it's patched,
so it should not cause a lot of troubles to release the details.

#### HTML File

As for this [tweet](https://twitter.com/wdormann/status/1440036541112328199) by [Will Dormann](https://twitter.com/wdormann), 
the HTML should be at least 4096 bytes in size in order to trigger the "Preview" within MS Word. 

#### CAB File

The CAB file needs to be byte-patched to avoid extraction errors and to achieve the ZipSlip:
* `filename.inf` should become `../filename.inf`
* `filename.inf` ~~should be exactly <12-char>.inf~~ Not really true, the important bit is to modify `coffCabStart`
* `CFFOLDER.typeCompress` ~~should be 0 (not compressed)~~
* `CFFOLDER.coffCabStart` should be increased by 3 (due to the added '../'')
* `CFFOLDER.cCfData` ~~should be 2~~
* `CFFILE.cbFile` should be greater than the whole `CFHEADER.cbCabinet`
* `CFDATA.csum` ~~should be recalculated (or zeroed out)~~ [OPTIONAL]

The reason for these constraints are many, and I didn't spend enough time to deeply understand all of them, but 
let's see the most important:

* **TypeCompress**: ~~If the CAB is compressed, the trick to open it within an object file to trigger the INF write will fail~~ False, I managed to achieve the same result with a MSZIP compressed sample
* **CoffCabStart**: CoffCabStart gives the absolute position of the first CFDATA structure, as we added a '../', 
  we would need to increase this by 3 to point to the file (this is more like a guess)
* **cCfData**: ~~As there is only 1 file, we should have just 1 CFDATA, I'm not too sure why this has to be set to 2~~ Indeed, we can leave it as 1
* **cbFile**: Interestingly, if the CAB extraction concludes without any error, the INF file will be marked for deletion
  by WORD, ruining the exploit. The only way to prevent this is to make WORD believe the extraction failed. If the
  cbFile value is defined as greater than the cabinet file itself, the extractor will reach an EOF before reading
  all the bytes defined in cbFile, raising an extraction error.
* [OPTIONAL] This value seems to not be checked by MS Word. Anyway, to have a correct CAB, the **csum** value should be recalculated. Luckily, as noted by [j00sean](https://twitter.com/j00sean)
  and according to [MS documentation](http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/d/a/4da14f27-b4ef-4170-a6e6-5b1ef85b1baa/[ms-cab].pdf), 
  this value can be 0

**NOTE1**: Defender now detects if the CAB file contains a PE by using the `_IMAGE_DOS_HEADER.e_magic` value as a 
signature, potentially avoiding PE files to be embedded in the CAB. Can this signature be bypassed? 
I'm not sure but, as observed before, this is a patched vulnerability, so I'm not planning to invest much more time 
on this. Up to the curious reader to develop this further.

**NOTE2**: Microsoft Patch blocks arbitrary URI schemes, apparently using a blacklist approach (this is just a supposition)

# DLL Attack

The main attack chain associated with CVE-2021-40444 is the DLL attack loaded via the `.cpl` URI scheme. In order to 
exploit that, an attacker needs to generate a specially crafted DLL. If you want to test it out, try my [evildll-gen](https://gist.github.com/klezVirus/e24c94d7061f5736e2452eee022f4011)
script.

# JScript, VBScript, Javaw, MSIexec, ...

As noted by [Max Maluin](https://twitter.com/Max_Mal_), it is possible to interact with several filetypes abusing IE and 
the associated file extension based URI. While this is might be a good way to exploit IE, it has limitations.

Indeed, it should be noted that the method used in the exploit to download files is based on ActiveX control updates, 
and cannot be used to download arbitrary files.
As per Microsoft [documentation](https://docs.microsoft.com/it-it/cpp/mfc/upgrading-an-existing-activex-control?view=msvc-160), the `codebase` tag
can point just to a few filetypes: OCX, INF and CAB.

Even if we can directly download an OCX or INF file, we still can't be sure to download the file in the right location 
within the system. With the cab exploit, it is possible to move the `.inf` file in a well-known path using the path traversal,
but in any other case the file will be stored in a random directory, making it virtually impossible to reference it.

As of today, I didn't find a way to chain download and execution WITHOUT a CAB file.

Note: Talking about IE alone, HTML smuggling could be a possible scenario to exploit the vulnerability.

# Cab-less file attack using hybrid RAR file

This technique was firstly disclosed by [Eduardo Braun](https://twitter.com/Edu_Braun_0day) on Twitter and further explained in [this](https://github.com/Edubr2020/CVE-2021-40444--CABless/blob/main/MS_Windows_CVE-2021-40444%20-%20'Ext2Prot'%20Vulnerability%20'CABless'%20version.pdf) paper.

Please note that using this technique, the attack chain is a bit different. This attack requires the user to download 
a specially crafted RAR file, obtained by chaining a valid WSF script and a valid RAR file. Once opened, the RAR will contain 
a DOCX with a reference to an HTML, which in turn will try to load the RAR file as a WSF script.

To summarise:

1. Specially crafted RAR file is downloaded (likely Download folder)
2. DOCX extracted and opened
3. Relationship stored in document.xml.rels points to malicious html
4. IE preview is launched to open the HTML link
5. JScript within the HTML contains a script/iframe pointing to the RAR file, prefixed with the ".wsf:" URI scheme
6. As the RAR was designed to be contemporaneously a valid RAR and a valid WSF script, the script is executed

# What are the exploits PoC implemented by the tool

The generator utility can currently reproduce the following attacks:

| Attack                                    | HTML Templates      | Target | Delivery Method | Execution Method | Working         |
|-------------------------------------------|---------------------|--------|-----------------|------------------|-----------------|
| Original version of the attack            | cab-orig-*          | WORD   | DOCX            | CAB + DLL        | YES             |
| j00sean IE-only attack                    | cab-orig-j00san     | IE     | HTML            | CAB + DLL        | YES             |
| My version without DLL                    | cab-uri-*           | WORD   | DOCX            | CAB + JS/VBS     | NO<sup>1</sup>  |
| Eduardo B. "CABless" attack using RAR     | cabless-rar-*       | WORD   | RAR             | WSF              | YES             |
| Modified j00sean attack + HTML smuggling  | cabless-smuggling-* | IE     | HTML            | JS/VBS           | YES<sup>2</sup> | 

_<sup>1</sup>The CAB is not downloaded properly in some environments_

_<sup>2</sup>The user needs to click on "Save" to download the file on IE_

# CAB file parser

The utility `cab_parser.py` can be used to see the headers of the exploit file, but don't consider this a full 
parser. It's a very quick and dirty CAB header viewer I developed to understand what was going on.

# Install

The generator is designed to work on Windows, as it uses the `makecab` utility. Before usage, be sure to install required dependencies:

* With Virtualenv

```
git clone https://github.com/klezVirus/CVE-2021-40444
cd CVE-2021-40444
pip install virtualenv
python -m virtualenv venv
venv\Scripts\activate.bat 
pip install -r requirements
```

* Without Virtualenv

```
git clone https://github.com/klezVirus/CVE-2021-40444
cd CVE-2021-40444
pip install -r requirements
```

# Usage

The generator is trivial to use, and even if it has been tested with a number of different payloads and Windows
versions, it is not fail-proof. I'm encountering different behaviours across different Windows builds. As soon as
I have more details to share, I'll post them here.

```
usage: generator.py [-h] -P PAYLOAD -u URL [-o OUTPUT] [--host] [-c COPY_TO] [-nc] [-t]

[%] CVE-2021-40444 - MS Office Word RCE Exploit [%]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -P PAYLOAD, --payload PAYLOAD
                        DLL payload to use for the exploit
  -u URL, --url URL     Server URL for malicious references (CAB->INF)
  -o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT
                        Output files basename (no extension)
  --host                If set, will host the payload after creation
  -c COPY_TO, --copy-to COPY_TO
                        Copy payload to an alternate path
  -nc, --no-cab         Use the CAB-less version of the exploit
  -t, --test            Open IExplorer to test the final HTML file
```

# Example

* Generate the original exploit and test it locally

```
python generator.py -u http://127.0.0.1 -P test\calc.dll --host 
```
_Note: the port is selected by the URL, and the exploit is generated basing on the payload file extension_

* Generate the CABless exploit with RAR and test it locally via IE

```
python generator.py -u http://127.0.0.1 -P test\job-jscript.wsf --no-cab --host -t 
```

* Generate the CABless exploit (IE-only) with HTML smuggling and test it locally via IE

```
python generator.py -u http://127.0.0.1 -P test\calc.js --no-cab --host -t 
```

# Credits

* [RET2_pwn](https://twitter.com/RET2_pwn) for the amazing blog
* [j00sean](https://twitter.com/j00sean) for the good hints
* [lockedbyte](https://github.com/lockedbyte/CVE-2021-40444) for the first decent poc
* [Max_Mal](https://twitter.com/Max_Mal) for the hint on the alternate URI schemes
* [wdormann](https://twitter.com/wdormann) for the hint on the HTML file size restrictions
* [Edu_Braun_0day](https://twitter.com/Edu_Braun_0day) for the cool CAB-less version of the exploit