[SOLVED] Cs6035 project 1- database security

Learning Goals of this Project:You will learn about two different types of database vulnerabilities and how each attack works. Inference attacks are security attacks that attempt to extract sensitive information from a database by making educated guesses based on the available information. Hackers use this prevalent practice to data mine troves of information to connect the dots to extract sensitive information.In a SQL injection attack, an attacker injects malicious SQL code into a web applications input fields to manipulate the database, gain unauthorized access to sensitive data, or execute harmful actions.In particular, we will cover these learning topics:The final deliverables:A single JSON formatted file will be submitted to Gradescope. This file should be named **project_dbsec.json. _**A template can be found in the /home/dbsec/Desktop_folder.SeeSubmission Detailsfor more information.Important Reference Material:All Encompassing:Inference:SQL Injection:Submission:Gradescope (auto-graded) seeSubmission DetailsVirtual Machine:TABLE OF CONTENTSFrequently Asked Question(s) (FAQ)Hi, please use this thread throughout the semester; well keep it pinned for your reference.This thread is where you can discuss any Virtual Machine (VM) troubleshooting you want to share with other students.Most students have a trouble-free experience with our VM. We can only do so much to support Virtual Box installations; we might recommend you try another machine as a last resort.Please be sure to read the VM FAQ first! And the Technical Requirements.You will need a program to run virtual machines, but the TA team for this class only supports the latest version of VirtualBox. If you try other hypervisors, they might work, but if you run into trouble, the TA team will not assist you. Also, the Mx/ARM processors cannot run this VM and, therefore, will not be supported.DownloadsHash/Checksum of VM ImageTo check the SHA-256 checksum of a file in Windows:To check the SHA-256 hash of a file on a Mac:To check the SHA256 hash of a file in Linux:This post announces that the Database Security project will be released at midnight on Wednesday, Jan 24. You will have ten days to finish, and it will close on Saturday, Feb 3, at 11:59 PM EDT. Instructions are here DbSec Project InstructionsThe project (and most subsequent projects) will be performed on a class VM with all the projects. Each project will have its own username and password to log into the VM. If you have not already downloaded/set up the VM, you can read how to do so here VM Download / Questions / TroubleshootingFor the DB Security project, this is the username and password:
Username: dbsec
Password: Iguazu-FallsPlease reference the FAQ & Troubleshooting pages for this project if you encounter issues:Also, reference the discussion threads:All questions on the project need to be asked in those locations. We arent doing private chats and will ignore questions posted outside those threads.There is a limit of 20 submissions for the Database Security Project!You will need your GTID for this and other projects.
This location has recently been changed and was not updated in the VM for the DbSec project.Where do I find my GTID?Flag 0TASK 1: INFERENCE ATTACK- #1 (flags1-4 20 pts)*NOTE Task 1 has multiple flags (flag1, flag2, flag3, flag4)Your first two attacks will involve what is called an inference attack. This is not an actual hack against a system, and it often doesnt involve hackers at all. Data security is about keeping data confidential on a need-to-know basis, and most data at most companies is secured by permissions that limit who can see data. These permissions can be at the level of the table (the full list of a particular type of data, for instance the employee table contains the basic data about employees), the level of a row (a row in this case would correspond to the record for a single employee), or the level of a column (in this case a piece of information about an employee, like gender or position at work). However, it takes thought and care to maintain these controls, and often they can be inadvertently and carelessly circumvented. An inference attack usually involves access to standard reports available to a wide range of employees. Consider the sensitive area of salary. A company might consider that a column to restrict in terms of access and might well make an employee roster report that anyone could view that does not list peoples salaries. However, there may be other standard reports a company uses that are not carefully designed to protect those controls. By using two or more reports together, a rank-and-file employee can discover salary details they are not supposed to know by combining the information on the two reports and inferring the missing data, thus the name inference attack. You use multiple data sets to learn information that you are not supposed to know.This is what has happened with these first reports you are looking at that were provided to you for testing. You have been given four internal reports for a single company. One report is a simple employee roster, one report lists out how long employees have been members of the organization, one report groups data on all employees together to provide the average salary for employees based upon the state that they live in, and the final report lists the average salary for employees based upon how long they have been a part of the company. Individually, these four reports do not violate the controls that the client has placed on access to sensitive HR data. However, as you do your analysis, you realize that there has been a hole opened in those controls to someone who puts the reports together and does a little analysis of the contents of the reports.The audit reveals to start that at minimum at least one persons salary is publicly available to all employees that can run these four reports. To successfully complete task 1, you need to find a hole in the protection where you can definitively find the actual salary of employees. After finding the first employee, continue looking for a hole in the protection to find the next employee whose salary you can definitively find. Continue this for 4 employees. Each employee will have a hash associated with them. This hash is unique to your VM and was generated when you completed task 0. Once you have identified which employees have the exposed salary, record the hash value displayed for that employee on the report in your JSON file for flags1-4. You will pass task 1 if you have the correct hash values. Remember that you only get 20 submissions for the entire project, so if you randomly try different hash codes, you will only hurt yourself later in the project.For Task 1 order matters (order of finding) for the flags (flag1 is the first employee found, flag 4 is the fourth employee found)!To earn your hash for flags1-4, you must perform the following actions.Hints:Include your flags1-4 hashes_salaries into the JSON file, and now, onto Task 2!TASK 2: INFERENCE ATTACK- #2 (flags5-8 30 pts)**NOTE Task 2 has multiple flags (flag5, flag6, flag7, flag8)Now that you have seen how an inference attack can compromise data in a single company, we next consider how inference attacks can be used to compromise data by combining unrelated data sets.For this attack, consider four completely unrelated data sources. All four are internet facing and therefore available to anyone with internet access. The first report is a sample report produced for a local hospital concerning types of procedures done within the last few years. The second report is a voter registration database, which has certain well-established fields in it (you could go to your local board of elections and get a report like this on all registered voters in your district most likely). The third report is a partially de-identified report for an insurance company for a sample data set for public use built by the same developers we have been dealing with. Partially de-identified means that though there were some attempts made to remove an obvious link to actual patients, there is still some data left on the report that might link back to a real person if looked at carefully. We also have provided a helpful list of medical codes to link to the hospital report.The problem here comes from the incomplete deidentification of the data in the insurance companys claim report. Because of this, it may be possible to join these four sources together somehow to find a specific persons medical history to know that on a specific date, a specific person had a specific procedure done. This is of course a significant breach of HIPAA regulations (in fact, this exercise was inspired by the incident where the medical history of the governor of Massachusetts was made public in just such a fashion). Your objective in this inference attack is to find specific persons who had a procedure that you can link by name and identity to a specific attack in the medical data using all four data sources. You may want to look up the work done on the patient using the codes in the medical history on the medical codes list, which might be helpful in the process. You will find a hash next to each person in the voter report. Select the correct hash as your response to this task by listing the hash in your JSON file for flags5-8. Just as in Task 1, start by isolating the data to one person, then after that isolation, see if you can isolate down to one person again, and contine the process. You will pass task 2 if you have the correct hash values. Remember that you only get 20 submissions for the entire project, so if you randomly try different hash codes, you will only hurt yourself later in the project.For Task 2 order does not matters (order of finding) for the flags!To earn your hash for flags5-8, you must perform the following actions.Hints:Include your flags5-8 hashes_cptcodes into the JSON file, and now, onto Task 3!TASK 3: SQL INJECTION #1 (flag9 10 pts / flag10 10 pts / flag11 10 pts)*NOTE Task 3 has 3 flags (flag9, flag10, flag11)The next two tasks involve the most common database attack SQL injection. This attack is one of the most common information security attacks in the world, and yet it is also one of the easiest to mitigate (in other words, lazy or careless programming is what causes this attack to be possible). SQL injection is possible when inputs are not sanitized. That sounds complicated, but what that means simply is that when you give someone a form or a web page to enter data, and there are slots for a user to type in, as a programmer you are responsible to ensure that somewhere in the process those input fields are inspected and any bad input is sanitized. SQL injection happens when the contents of the input fields without data sanitization are used in a text string to create a database query and sent to the database server in a form the developer did not intend.To get into the basics of SQL injection, you can start by looking up online SQL Injection Cheat Sheet which is a helpful introduction to the topic. But what you will need to do to accomplish this task is figure out how to write some basic SQL code (the complexity wont be in the SQL code, but in the bypass of the SQL Injection security) that can be placed into the input field of a form and passed to the website in such a way that it is a valid SQL statement that does things that the original developer did not intend. This can be as simple as simply bypassing security, collecting information you should not have, or at worst you will be making actual changes to the data of the website that the website owners do not want at all. Once the hole exists, your power to exploit it can be immense as long as you can guess the structure of the underlying database, or to map it out.For Task 3, you have a website where your user ID is your GTID, as you entered on Task 0. The site wants to upgrade its old Legacy Login page. The legacy pages main security is done by checking to see if there is a direct match to a user by the username (your GTID). You do not know and will not receive the password to enter the system. For flag9, the developers are asking you to determine the difficulty in bypassing the existing security, knowing that a SQL Injection attack is possible. The developers want to make an attempt to mitigate the risk of such an attack; however, they are wondering if they should be using just client-side data sanitization or both client and server-side data sanitization, with the server-side and client-side data sanitization being the same. For flag10, you will attempt to bypass the security using client-side data sanitization. For flag11, you will attempt to bypass the security using both client and server-side data sanitization. The client provided a snippet of the code they used on the legacy login page. You can use this code to try and figure out how to perform the SQL injection. When you succeed, you will log into the website using your GT ID and no password. The injection will bypass the password requirements and log you in immediately. Once logged in, the hash for flags9-11 keyed to your GT ID will be displayed. All three hashes for Task 3 will be different.To earn your hash for flags9-11, you must perform the following actions.Where do I find my GTID?Hints:function login($username, $password) {$sql = SELECT * FROM users WHERE eid=$username AND password=$password’;$userdata = $this->db->query($sql)->next();if ($userdata) {return true;} else {return false;}}Include your flags9-11 hashes into the JSON file, and now, onto Task 4!TASK 4: SQL INJECTION #2 (flag12 15 pts)*NOTE Task 4 has 1 flag (flag12)In this case, you will be looking at a search engine for a database of music albums for a music store. You have discovered that there is a page called schema which offers the user a view of the underlying metadata of the table used to populate the main report. By now, if you have been paying attention, the designers of these sites have followed a similar pattern for how their sites work, especially if you look at the hyperlinks that lead to the pages. You know therefore that there is probably a way to get admin access to that schema leveraging that knowledge of how they use links. And that means that there might be table definitions available to users who poke around and try to find things that they should not.So your task then is first to figure out if you can find any additional information about tables in the database, and second to figure out how to leverage the information you find in the context of a SQL injection. If you are successful in crafting a SQL injection, you will find an actual database account appear on the report that you can use to log into the system using the Login screen on task 4. If you have the correct login information you can only obtain by SQL injection, you can enter the login information into that screen and get access to the management console. Of course, for our purposes management console is just the hash you need to get credit for the attack. Once the hash appears on the screen, you can enter it into your JSON file.To earn your hash for flag12, you must perform the following actions.Hints:Include your flag12 hash into the JSON file and submit it to Gradescope!