194,6667,6660-7000 - Pentesting IRC

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Basic Information

IRC, initially a plain text protocol, was assigned 194/TCP by IANA but is commonly run on 6667/TCP and similar ports to avoid needing root privileges for operation.

A nickname is all that's needed to connect to a server. Following connection, the server performs a reverse-DNS lookup on the user's IP.

Users are divided into operators, who need a username and password for more access, and regular users. Operators have varying levels of privileges, with administrators at the top.

Default ports: 194, 6667, 6660-7000

PORT     STATE SERVICE
6667/tcp open  irc

Enumeration

Banner

IRC can support TLS.

nc -vn <IP> <PORT>
openssl s_client -connect <IP>:<PORT> -quiet

Manual

Here you can see how to connect and access the IRC using some random nickname and then enumerate some interesting info. You can learn more commands of IRC here.

#Connection with random nickname
USER ran213eqdw123 0 * ran213eqdw123
NICK ran213eqdw123
#If a PING :<random> is responded you need to send
#PONG :<received random>

VERSION
HELP
INFO
LINKS
HELPOP USERCMDS
HELPOP OPERCMDS
OPERATOR CAPA
ADMIN      #Admin info
USERS      #Current number of users
TIME       #Server's time
STATS a    #Only operators should be able to run this
NAMES      #List channel names and usernames inside of each channel -> Nombre del canal y nombre de las personas que estan dentro
LIST       #List channel names along with channel banner
WHOIS <USERNAME>      #WHOIS a username
USERHOST <USERNAME>   #If available, get hostname of a user
USERIP <USERNAME>     #If available, get ip of a user
JOIN <CHANNEL_NAME>   #Connect to a channel

#Operator creds Brute-Force
OPER <USERNAME> <PASSWORD>

You can, also, atttempt to login to the server with a password. The default password for ngIRCd is wealllikedebian.

PASS wealllikedebian
NICK patrick
USER test1 test2 <IP> :test3

Find and scan IRC services

nmap -sV --script irc-botnet-channels,irc-info,irc-unrealircd-backdoor -p 194,6660-7000 <ip>

Brute Force

Shodan

looking up your hostname