14 KiB
macOS Library Injection
☁️ HackTricks Cloud ☁️ -🐦 Twitter 🐦 - 🎙️ Twitch 🎙️ - 🎥 Youtube 🎥
- Do you work in a cybersecurity company? Do you want to see your company advertised in HackTricks? or do you want to have access to the latest version of the PEASS or download HackTricks in PDF? Check the SUBSCRIPTION PLANS!
- Discover The PEASS Family, our collection of exclusive NFTs
- Get the official PEASS & HackTricks swag
- Join the 💬 Discord group or the telegram group or follow me on Twitter 🐦@carlospolopm.
- Share your hacking tricks by submitting PRs to the hacktricks repo and hacktricks-cloud repo.
{% hint style="danger" %} The code of dyld is open source and can be found in https://opensource.apple.com/source/dyld/ and cab be downloaded a tar using a URL such as https://opensource.apple.com/tarballs/dyld/dyld-852.2.tar.gz {% endhint %}
DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES
This is a colon separated list of dynamic libraries to load before the ones specified in the program. This lets you test new modules of existing dynamic shared libraries that are used in flat-namespace images by loading a temporary dynamic shared library with just the new modules. Note that this has no effect on images built a two-level namespace images using a dynamic shared library unless DYLD_FORCE_FLAT_NAMESPACE is also used.
This is like the LD_PRELOAD on Linux.
This technique may be also used as an ASEP technique as every application installed has a plist called "Info.plist" that allows for the assigning of environmental variables using a key called LSEnvironmental
.
{% hint style="info" %}
Since 2012 Apple has drastically reduced the power of the DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES
.
Go to the code and check src/dyld.cpp
. In the function pruneEnvironmentVariables
you can see that DYLD_*
variables are removed.
In the function processRestricted
the reason of the restriction is set. Checking that code you can see that the reasons are:
- The binary is
setuid/setgid
- Existence of
__RESTRICT/__restrict
section in the macho binary. - The software has entitlements (hardened runtime) without
com.apple.security.cs.allow-dyld-environment-variables
entitlement orcom.apple.security.cs.disable-library-validation
.- Check entitlements of a binary with:
codesign -dv --entitlements :- </path/to/bin>
- Check entitlements of a binary with:
- If the lib is signed with a different certificate as the binary
- If the lib & the bin are signed with the same cert, this will bypass the previous restrictions
- Programs with the entitlements
system.install.apple-software
andsystem.install.apple-software.standar-user
can install software signed by Apple without asking the user for a password (privesc)
In more updated versions you can find this logic at the second part of the function configureProcessRestrictions
. However, what is executed in newer versions is the beginning checks of the function (you can remove the ifs related to iOS or simulation as those won't be used in macOS.
{% endhint %}
You can check if a binary has hardenend runtime with codesign --display --verbose <bin>
checking the flag runtime in CodeDirectory
like: CodeDirectory v=20500 size=767 flags=0x10000(runtime) hashes=13+7 location=embedded
Find a example on how to (ab)use this and check the restrictions in:
{% content-ref url="../../macos-dyld-hijacking-and-dyld_insert_libraries.md" %} macos-dyld-hijacking-and-dyld_insert_libraries.md {% endcontent-ref %}
Dylib Hijacking
{% hint style="danger" %} Remember that previous restrictions also apply to perform Dylib hijacking attacks. {% endhint %}
As in Windows, in MacOS you can also hijack dylibs to make applications execute arbitrary code.
However, the way MacOS applications load libraries is more restricted than in Windows. This implies that malware developers can still use this technique for stealth, but the probably to be able to abuse this to escalate privileges is much lower.
First of all, is more common to find that MacOS binaries indicates the full path to the libraries to load. And second, MacOS never search in the folders of the $PATH for libraries.
The main part of the code related to this functionality is in ImageLoader::recursiveLoadLibraries
in ImageLoader.cpp
.
However, there are 2 types of dylib hijacking:
- Missing weak linked libraries: This means that the application will try to load a library that doesn't exist configured with LC_LOAD_WEAK_DYLIB. Then, if an attacker places a dylib where it's expected it will be loaded.
- The fact that the link is "weak" means that the application will continue running even if the library isn't found.
- The code related to this is in the function
ImageLoaderMachO::doGetDependentLibraries
ofImageLoaderMachO.cpp
wherelib->required
is onlyfalse
whenLC_LOAD_WEAK_DYLIB
is true. - Find weak liked libraries in binaries with (you have later an example on how to create hijacking libraries):
-
otool -l </path/to/bin> | grep LC_LOAD_WEAK_DYLIB -A 5 cmd LC_LOAD_WEAK_DYLIB cmdsize 56 name /var/tmp/lib/libUtl.1.dylib (offset 24) time stamp 2 Wed Jun 21 12:23:31 1969 current version 1.0.0 compatibility version 1.0.0
-
- Configured with @rpath: Mach-O binaries can have the commands
LC_RPATH
andLC_LOAD_DYLIB
. Base on the values of those commands, libraries are going to be loaded from different directories.LC_RPATH
contains the paths of some folders used to load libraries by the binary.LC_LOAD_DYLIB
contains the path to specific libraries to load. These paths can contain@rpath
, which will be replaced by the values inLC_RPATH
. If there are several paths inLC_RPATH
everyone will be used to search the library to load. Example:- If
LC_LOAD_DYLIB
contains@rpath/library.dylib
andLC_RPATH
contains/application/app.app/Contents/Framework/v1/
and/application/app.app/Contents/Framework/v2/
. Both folders are going to be used to loadlibrary.dylib
. If the library doesn't exist in[...]/v1/
and attacker could place it there to hijack the load of the library in[...]/v2/
as the order of paths inLC_LOAD_DYLIB
is followed.
- If
- Find rpath paths and libraries in binaries with:
otool -l </path/to/binary> | grep -E "LC_RPATH|LC_LOAD_DYLIB" -A 5
{% hint style="info" %}
@executable_path
: Is the path to the directory containing the main executable file.
@loader_path
: Is the path to the directory containing the Mach-O binary which contains the load command.
- When used in an executable,
@loader_path
is effectively the same as@executable_path
. - When used in a dylib,
@loader_path
gives the path to the dylib. {% endhint %}
The way to escalate privileges abusing this functionality would be in the rare case that an application being executed by root is looking for some library in some folder where the attacker has write permissions.
{% hint style="success" %}
A nice scanner to find missing libraries in applications is Dylib Hijack Scanner or a CLI version.
A nice report with technical details about this technique can be found here.
{% endhint %}
Example
{% content-ref url="../../macos-dyld-hijacking-and-dyld_insert_libraries.md" %} macos-dyld-hijacking-and-dyld_insert_libraries.md {% endcontent-ref %}
Dlopen Hijacking
From man dlopen
:
- When path does not contain a slash character (i.e. it is just a leaf name), dlopen() will do searching. If
$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
was set at launch, dyld will first look in that directory. Next, if the calling mach-o file or the main executable specify anLC_RPATH
, then dyld will look in those directories. Next, if the process is unrestricted, dyld will search in the current working directory. Lastly, for old binaries, dyld will try some fallbacks. If$DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH
was set at launch, dyld will search in those directories, otherwise, dyld will look in/usr/local/lib/
(if the process is unrestricted), and then in/usr/lib/
.$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
LC_RPATH
CWD
(if unrestricted)$DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH
/usr/local/lib/
(if unrestricted)/usr/lib/
- When path looks like a framework path (e.g. /stuff/foo.framework/foo), if
$DYLD_FRAMEWORK_PATH
was set at launch, dyld will first look in that directory for the framework partial path (e.g. foo.framework/foo). Next, dyld will try the supplied path as-is (using current working directory for relative paths). Lastly, for old binaries, dyld will try some fallbacks. If$DYLD_FALLBACK_FRAMEWORK_PATH
was set at launch, dyld will search those directories. Otherwise, it will search/Library/Frameworks
(on macOS if process is unrestricted), then/System/Library/Frameworks
.$DYLD_FRAMEWORK_PATH
- supplied path (using current working directory for relative paths)
$DYLD_FALLBACK_FRAMEWORK_PATH
(if unrestricted)/Library/Frameworks
(if unrestricted)/System/Library/Frameworks
- When path contains a slash but is not a framework path (i.e. a full path or a partial path to a dylib), dlopen() first looks in (if set) in
$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
(with leaf part from path ). Next, dyld tries the supplied path (using current working directory for relative paths (but only for unrestricted processes)). Lastly, for older binaries, dyld will try fallbacks. If$DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH
was set at launch, dyld will search in those directories, otherwise, dyld will look in/usr/local/lib/
(if the process is unrestricted), and then in/usr/lib/
.$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
- supplied path (using current working directory for relative paths if unrestricted)
$DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH
/usr/local/lib/
(if unrestricted)/usr/lib/
Note: If the main executable is a set[ug]id binary or codesigned with entitlements, then all environment variables are ignored, and only a full path can be used.
Check paths
Lets check all the options with the following code:
#include <dlfcn.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
void* handle;
handle = dlopen("just_name_dlopentest.dylib",1);
if (!handle) {
fprintf(stderr, "Error loading: %s\n", dlerror());
}
handle = dlopen("a/framework/rel_framework_dlopentest.dylib",1);
if (!handle) {
fprintf(stderr, "Error loading: %s\n", dlerror());
}
handle = dlopen("/a/abs/framework/abs_framework_dlopentest.dylib",1);
if (!handle) {
fprintf(stderr, "Error loading: %s\n", dlerror());
}
handle = dlopen("a/folder/rel_folder_dlopentest.dylib",1);
if (!handle) {
fprintf(stderr, "Error loading: %s\n", dlerror());
}
handle = dlopen("/a/abs/folder/abs_folder_dlopentest.dylib",1);
if (!handle) {
fprintf(stderr, "Error loading: %s\n", dlerror());
}
return 0;
}
If you compile and execute it you can see where each library was unsuccessfully searched for. Also, you could filter the FS logs:
sudo fs_usage | grep "dlopentest"
☁️ HackTricks Cloud ☁️ -🐦 Twitter 🐦 - 🎙️ Twitch 🎙️ - 🎥 Youtube 🎥
- Do you work in a cybersecurity company? Do you want to see your company advertised in HackTricks? or do you want to have access to the latest version of the PEASS or download HackTricks in PDF? Check the SUBSCRIPTION PLANS!
- Discover The PEASS Family, our collection of exclusive NFTs
- Get the official PEASS & HackTricks swag
- Join the 💬 Discord group or the telegram group or follow me on Twitter 🐦@carlospolopm.
- Share your hacking tricks by submitting PRs to the hacktricks repo and hacktricks-cloud repo.