Posts by Rapid7

2 min Metasploit

How VPN pivoting creates an undetectable local network tap

Let's assume your goal for an external penetration test is to pwn the domain controller. Of course, the domain controller's IP address is not directly accessible from the Web, so how do you go about it? Seasoned pentesters already know the answer: they compromise a publicly accessible host and pivot to other machines and network segments until they reach the domain controller. It's the same concept as a frog trying to cross a pond by jumping from lily pad to lily pad. If you have already

1 min

Metasploit Framework 3.5.0 - Win32 respin

The 3.5.0 release a couple of weeks ago ran into a few minor problems in the new Windows installer.  First, Console2, our new terminal emulator, wouldn't work correctly with our setup if you already had a copy installed.  Second, installing into a directory with a space in its name would prevent Console from starting.  Lastly, and probably more important for most users, is that the new msfgui didn't work out of the box due to some incorrect paths in various places.  All of these issues have been

2 min Awards

We weren't joking when we said "tattoos"!

Be careful what we wish for: In 2006, HD Moore wrote a blog post [/2006/08/27/metasploit-framework-30-beta-2] about a redesign of the Metasploit Project, announcing that the new graphics “will be featured on tee shirts, posters, and tattoos over the coming year.” Well, you guys took a little longer than we thought but we now have our first Metasploit tattoo! Initially, we thought Roy Morris (aka @soundwave1234 [http://twitter.com/soundwave1234]) was joking when he tweeted to @hdmoore [htt

2 min

Metasploit Anniversary Marks World's Most Successful Open Source Acquisition

Exactly one year ago, Rapid7 acquired the Metasploit Project [http://www.metasploit.com]. Many community members feared that this would be the end of Metasploit's open source era. After all, many open source projects had been turned into commercial offerings at the cost of the community. Most prominently our space, a widely used vulnerability scanner is no longer open source. To the surprise of many skeptics, Metasploit is arguably the most successful collaboration between an open source pro

3 min

One Year Later: Metasploit Framework 3.5.0 Released!

On this first anniversary of Rapid7's acquisition of The Metasploit Project, we are proud to announce the release of the newest version of the Metasploit Framework, 3.5.0 [https://information.rapid7.com/metasploit-framework.html], with over 600 exploits and tons of bug fixes. A lot has happened in the last year.  Twelve months ago, lots of folks were asking whether the acquisition was going to mean the end of Metasploit.  To address some of those questions a year ago, I promised several things.

2 min Exploits

Take an Earlier Flight Home with the New Metasploit Pro

We love it, our beta testers loved it, and we trust you will as well: today we're introducing Metasploit Pro [http://www.rapid7.com/products/metasploit-pro.jsp], our newest addition to the Metasploit family, made for penetration testers who need a bigger, and better, bag of tricks. Metasploit Pro provides advanced penetration testing capabilities, including web application exploitation and social engineering. The feedback from our beta testers has been fantastic, most people loved how easily

1 min Patch Tuesday

October Patch Tuesday Roundup

Although Microsoft's October patch covers 39 vulnerabilities, there are only 4 critical bulletins.   One of the vulnerabilities, covered by bulletin MS10-083, was reported to Microsoft by HD Moore back in 2006.   Unfortunately, according to HD Moore, despite the long wait, the fix “does not completely solve the underlying vulnerability, but it does block the easiest routes to exploitation.” In addition, Josh Abraham, one of Rapid7's vulnerability research experts, recommend paying attention to

2 min Patch Tuesday

September Patch Tuesday Roundup

Microsoft's patch for September includes 4 Critical Bulletins and 5 Important Bulletins covering 11 vulnerabilities. A couple vulnerabilities are worth noting including: MS10-064 a vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook allows for Remote Code Execution. This is the classic drive-by malware in which the attacker sends a malicious email message to the victim.  Simply by opening the contents of an email, the attacker can gain full control of the victim's machine.  Organizations should conduct user aw

3 min

Impersonating the Windows Print Spooler for Relayed RPC

On Friday night, I committed our exploit module which takes advantage of the vulnerability [http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2010-2729] fixed in MS10-061 [http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms10-061.mspx]. If you haven't seen it yet, you can find it here [http://www.metasploit.com/modules/exploit/windows/smb/ms10_061_spoolss]. In its most egregious form, this bug allowed a guest user with print access to write arbitrary content to arbitrary files with SYSTEM p

2 min Patch Tuesday

August Patch Tuesday Roundup

Microsoft's patch this month, which consists of 14 bulletins that address 34 vulnerabilities, is the largest since October 2009.   With the massive amount of work that lies ahead, it may help to prioritize your work. Josh Abraham, Rapid7 Security Researcher, recommends that you pay particular attention to MS10-054. This vulnerability in the SMB protocol “is potentially the most dangerous vulnerability as it allows unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary codes on remote machines.”  Abrah

2 min

Black Hat Race To Root Results

We had a good number of folks compete for prizes in the Race to Root competition at this year's Black Hat, so thanks to everyone who came by. Three competitors came out on top. Anders Hansen took first place! He'll be receiving both a ProxMark3 (http://proxmark3.com/) and a MAKInterface Magstripe Reader/Writer, Haikon Krohn took second place and will pick up a ProxMark3, and our third place finalist (JT Taylor) will also be receiving a MAKInterface. I was surprised by the number of folks who h

5 min

Shiny Old VxWorks Vulnerabilities

Back in June, I decided to spend some time looking at the VxWorks [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/VxWorks] operating system. Specifically, I kept finding references to VxWorks-based devices running firmware images with the debug service (WDB Agent) enabled, but I could not find a description of the protocol or any estimates as to how prevalent this service was. After a couple days of digging around and a couple more days of scanning, I became aware of just how extensive this issu

2 min

W3AF: An Open Source Success Story

Today, as Rapid7 announced the sponsorship [http://www.rapid7.com/news-events/press-releases/2010/2010-w3af.jsp] of a second open source project with its support of w3af [http://w3af.sourceforge.net/], I reflect back on my experience with Rapid7 over the last 9 months. When I agreed to the acquisition of the Metasploit project by Rapid7 in October last year it was with a lot of excitement but also with a small leap of faith. In my initial blog post [/2009/10/21/metasploit-rising] from October 2

3 min

July Patch Tuesday Roundup

The highlight of Microsoft's security bulletins is the fix for Microsoft's online help vulnerability (MS10-042) identified by Google security researcher, Tavis Ormandy, which could allow an attacker to take control of a computer by luring a computer user to a malicious Web site. Also as Microsoft's July security bulletins also address vulnerabilities in Windows XP, Josh Abraham, Rapid7 Security Researcher recommends that “customers should keep in-mind that Windows XP SP2 is now end-of-life. Th

1 min Metasploit

Metasploit Framework 3.4.1 Released!

The Metasploit Project is proud to announce the release of the Metasploit Framework version 3.4.1.  As always, you can get it from our downloads page [http://www.metasploit.com/framework/download/], for Windows or Linux.  This release sees the first official non-Windows Meterpreter payload, in PHP as discussed last month [/2010/06/14/meterpreter-for-pwned-home-pages].  Rest assured that more is in store for Meterpreter on other platforms.  A new extension called Railgun [http://mail.metasploit.c