CNIT 127: Exploit Development

Ch 3: Shellcode

Updated 2-8-22




 Topics
• Protection rings
• Syscalls
• Shellcode
• nasm Assembler
• ld GNU Linker
• objdump to see contents of object files
• strace System Call Tracer
• Removing Nulls
• Spawning a Shell

Understanding System Calls

 Shellcode
• Written in assembler
• Translated into hexadecimal opcodes
• Intended to inject into a system by
exploiting a vulnerability
• Typically spawns a root shell, but may do
something else

 System Calls (or Syscalls)

• Syscalls directly access the kernel, to:
– Get input
– Produce output
– Exit a process
– Execute a binary file
– And more
• They are the interface between protected
kernel mode and user mode

 Protection Rings
• Although the x86
provides four
rings, only rings 0
and 3 are used by
Windows or Unix
• Ring 3 is user-
land
• Ring 0 is kernel-
land
• Links Ch 3a-3c

 Protecting the Kernel

• Protected kernel mode
– Prevents user applications from compromising
the OS
• If a user mode program attempts to
access kernel memory, this generates an
access exception
• Syscalls are the interface between user
mode and kernel mode

 Libc
• C library wrapper
• C functions that perform syscalls
• Advantages of libc
– Allows programs to continue to function
normally even if a syscall is changed
– Provides useful functions, like malloc
– (malloc allocates space on the heap)
• See link Ch 3d

 Syscalls use INT 0x80

1. Load syscall number into EAX
2. Put arguments in other registers
3. Execute INT 0x80
4. CPU switches to kernel mode
5. Syscall function executes

 Syscall Number and Arguments

• Syscall number is an integer in EAX
• Up to six arguments are loaded into
– EBX, ECX, EDX, ESI, EDI, and EBP
• For more than six arguments, the first
argument holds a pointer to a data
structure

 Demonstration
Using Debian 11 64-Bit
 exit()

• The libc exit function does a lot of

preparation, carefully covering many
possible situations, and then calls SYSCALL
to exit
 Disassembling exit
• gdb -q e
– disassemble main

– main calls exit

– exit calls
__run_exit_handlers

– __run_exit_handlers
calls _exit

– disassemble _exit

• int 0x80
– call *$gs:10

– int 0x80

 Four Ways to Do Syscall

• Link Ch 3o
 Disassembling _exit

• syscall 252 (0xfc), exit_group() (kill all threads)

• syscall 1, exit() (kill calling thread)
– Link Ch 3e

Writing Shellcode for the

exit() Syscall
 Shellcode Size
• Shellcode should be as simple and
compact as possible
• Because vulnerabilities often only allow a
small number of injected bytes
– It therefore lacks error-handling, and will
crash easily

 sys_exit Syscall
• Two arguments: eax=1, ebx is return value
(0 in our case)
• Link Ch 3m

Simplest code for exit(0)

 nasm and ld
• sudo apt install nasm
• nasm creates object file
• gcc links it, creating an executable ELF file

 objdump
• Shows the contents of object files
 C Code to Test Shellcode

• From link Ch 3k, modified to put shellcode on the

stack
• Textbook version explained at link Ch 3i

 Compile and Run

• Textbook omits the "-z execstack" option

• It's required now or you get a segfault
• Next, we'll use "strace" to see all system
calls when this program runs
• That shows a lot of complex calls, and
"exit(0)" at the end

 Using strace
• sudo apt install strace
Injectable Shellcode
 Getting Rid of Nulls
• We have null bytes, which will terminate
a string and break the exploit
 Replacing Instructions
• This instruction contains nulls
– mov ebx,0
• This one doesn't
– xor ebx,ebx
• This instruction contains nulls, because it
moves 32 bits
– mov eax,1
• This one doesn't, moving only 8 bits
– mov al, 1




OLD

NEW
objdump of New Exit Shellcode
Spawning a Shell
 Beyond exit()
• The exit() shellcode stops the program, so
it's just a DoS attack
• Any illegal instruction can make the
program crash, so that's of little use
• We want shellcode that offers the
attacker a shell, so the attacker can type
in arbitrary commands

 Five Steps to Shellcode

1. Write high-level code
2. Compile and disassemble
3. Analyze the assembly
4. Clean up assembly, remove nulls
5. Extract commands and create shellcode

 fork() and execve()

• Two ways to create a new process in Linux
• Replace a running process
– Uses execve()
• Copy a running process to create a new
one
– Uses fork() and execve() together

man execve
 C Program to Use execve()

• Static linking preserves our execve syscall

 In gdb, disassemble main
• Pushes 3 Arguments
• Calls __execve

 disassemble execve
• Puts four parameters into edx, ecx, ebx, and eax
 Versions of syscall

• Link Ch 3n
Final Shellcode