Introduction

Over the past months, I’ve encountered a number of web applications that were using Telerik Web UI components for their application’s interface. There’s nothing wrong with using third party components to make your application’s interface the way you want it. However, a vulnerability in these components could cause you harm.

In this post, I’m going to show you how I pwned several web applications, specifically ASP.NET ones, by abusing an outdated version of Telerik Web UI.

Identification

The simplest way to check if the application is using Telerik Web UI is to view its HTML source code.

TIP #1: There are times where you’ll not find exactly the string Telerik.Web.UI from the HTML code. However, if you find the string Telerik, just keep on browsing the other pages of the application and search for the string Telerik.Web.UI again.

If you’ve identified that the application is using Telerik Web UI, the next step is to identify its version and check if it’s vulnerable to CVE-2017-9248.

Finding the version can either be easy or tricky. To get the exact version, just view the HTML code. In the case below, the version information sits right next to the string Telerik.Web.UI. That’s easy.

However, there are cases where the version is not located right next to the string “Telerik.Web.UI”. Another way to identify the version of Telerik Web UI is by going through the HTML comments just like here.

Once you have the version information, cross-reference it with the list of vulnerable versions. Based on the exploitation tool written by Paul Taylor (@bao7uo), the following versions are affected:

2007.1423 2008.31314 2010.31317 2013.1.403 2015.2.729 2007.1521 2009.1311 2011.1315 2013.1.417 2015.2.826 2007.1626 2009.1402 2011.1413 2013.2.611 2015.3.930 2007.2918 2009.1527 2011.1519 2013.2.717 2015.3.1111 2007.2101 2009.2701 2011.2712 2013.3.1015 2016.1.113 2007.21107 2009.2826 2011.2915 2013.3.1114 2016.1.225 2007.31218 2009.31103 2011.31115 2013.3.1324 2016.2.504 2007.31314 2009.31208 2011.3.1305 2014.1.225 2016.2.607 2007.31425 2009.31314 2012.1.215 2014.1.403 2016.3.914 2008.1415 2010.1309 2012.1.411 2014.2.618 2016.3.1018 2008.1515 2010.1415 2012.2.607 2014.2.724 2016.3.1027 2008.1619 2010.1519 2012.2.724 2014.3.1024 2017.1.118 2008.2723 2010.2713 2012.2.912 2015.1.204 2017.1.228 2008.2826 2010.2826 2012.3.1016 2015.1.225 2017.2.503 2008.21001 2010.2929 2012.3.1205 2015.1.401 2017.2.621 2008.31105 2010.31109 2012.3.1308 2015.2.604 2017.2.711 2008.31125 2010.31215 2013.1.220 2015.2.623 2017.3.913

Exploitation

Before jumping to the exploitation, we have to locate first the “Dialog Handler” Telerik.Web.UI.DialogHandler.aspx. Most of the time, it’s located at the root directory of the application. If it’s not there, try the sub-directories. To verify if you’ve found the right location, you should see the string “Loading the dialog…” when accessing the dialog handler.

TIP #2: Sometimes, the sub-directory where the dialog handler is located (or where Telerik Web UI is located in general) can be found from the HTML source code.

For the exploitation, use the tool written by Paul Taylor which can be downloaded here. Credits and big thanks to him for writing this one.

Here’s an example of the tool running to bruteforce the key and discover the hidden link to access the Document Manager page.

root@kali:~# python dp_crypto.py -k http://www.example.com/Telerik.Web.UI.DialogHandler.aspx 48 hex 9 dp_crypto by Paul Taylor / Foregenix Ltd CVE-2017-9248 - Telerik.Web.UI.dll Cryptographic compromise Attacking http://www.example.com/Telerik.Web.UI.DialogHandler.aspx to find key of length [48] with accuracy threshold [9] using key charset [01234567890ABCDEF] Key position 01: {D} found with 31 requests, total so far: 31 Key position 02: {3} found with 10 requests, total so far: 41 Key position 03: {A} found with 35 requests, total so far: 76 Key position 04: {D} found with 46 requests, total so far: 122 <------------------------ SNIPPED ------------------------> Key position 45: {B} found with 50 requests, total so far: 1638 Key position 46: {3} found with 36 requests, total so far: 1674 Key position 47: {3} found with 50 requests, total so far: 1724 Key position 48: {F} found with 57 requests, total so far: 1781 Found key: D3AD[redacted]B33F Total web requests: 1781 2014.3.1024: http://www.example.com/Telerik.Web.UI.DialogHandler.aspx?DialogName=DocumentManager&renderMode=2&Skin=Default&Title=Document%20Manager&dpptn=&isRtl=false&dp=[snipped&redacted]

By visiting the “Document Manager” link, we see that we now have access to all the files and folders of the web server. More importantly, we see that we can upload arbitrary files to the server.

Here’s an example of the shell cmd.aspx file that I uploaded.

And here’s an example of a command execution using the uploaded shell.

Telewreck

As part of my learning process, I decided to create a Burp Suite extension that can detect and exploit vulnerable instances of Telerik Web UI. I named it Telewreck and is available at https://github.com/capt-meelo/Telewreck.

When running a passive scan, this extension will look for vulnerable versions of Telerik Web UI.

A tab where you can perform the exploitation part is also available.

That’s it!

Feel free to contribute in the development of the tool and report/fix some issues.