Hack IIS6 Contest 545
ThePurpleBuffalo writes "This just came in across a BugTraq mailing list from Roger Grimes: 'Starting May 2nd and going until June 8th, the server located at http://www.hackiis6.com/ will welcome hackers to attack it. If you can deface the web site or capture the "hidden" document, you win an X-box! Read contest rules for what does and doesn't constitute a successful hack. We've tried to be as realistic as possible in what constitutes a successful hack, and in mimicking a basic HTML and ASP.NET web site. ' "
Re:Physical Access (Score:4, Informative)
"A successful hack does not include:
No a DOS does not count, slashdot is out :) (Score:5, Informative)
1. External denial of service attack against web server computer, or any participating vendor, or device. Denial of service attacks due to successfully modified content on web server computer are fair game.
They counted on that one
Full context of original e-mail. (Score:2, Informative)
Welcome to the HackIIS6.com Contest!
Starting May 2nd and going until June 8th, the server located at
http://www.hackiis6.com/ [hackiis6.com] will welcome hackers to attack it. If you can
deface the web site or capture the "hidden" document, you win an X-box!
Read contest rules for what does and doesn't constitute a successful
hack. We've tried to be as realistic as possible in what constitutes a
successful hack, and in mimicking a basic HTML and ASP.NET web site.
For the most part, almost anything reasonable constitutes a successful
attack except for a massive network denial of service attack against the
IIS 6 or its host provider. Not that doing a successful DoS attack
wouldn't be a problem in the real world...it would be...but we aren't
testing that. We want to test the security of Windows Server 2003, IIS,
and other Microsoft applications. So, please, respect this one rule of
the contest so everyone can have a chance at claiming the prize.
Questions and Prizes
If you have questions, send an email to admin@hackiis6.com. If you want
to claim a prize, send your email, with the details listed in the
official rules to prizes@hackiis6.com.
Contest Summary
We are going to start the contest for the first two weeks with the very
basic, static HTML web site that you are now reading. Two weeks later,
we'll add an ASP.NET web site and a back-end SQL server to add more
flavor and give more area to attack. We started with the basic site to
prove that Microsoft's Internet Information Service (IIS) and Windows
Server 2003 is secure by itself. This is to satisfy the purists who
thinking hacking ASP.NET is hacking an application and not the server.
So, if you've got skillz in one area versus the other, you'll have a
chance to try both attack types.
Once the contest stops on June 8th, we will announce the winner(s) at
the upcoming June Microsoft Tech.Ed conference.
The Setup
This server is running Windows Server 2003, Service Pack1, with all
current publicly-released patches and hotfixes installed (we ran Windows
Update and MBSA just like a real admin would do). We installed IIS 6.0.
and then we followed the basic recommendations
(http://www.microsoft.com/techne
by Microsoft. I added a few tweaks here and there, to put my personal
mark on the site, but nothing extraordinary.
There is no non-Microsoft software involved with the exception of the
host's router/firewall, which would be normal in most environments. We
want to make this a test of Microsoft software.
Why a hacking contest?
To have fun! Sure there will be critics who say sponsoring a hacking
contest proves nothing. If the IIS server remains unbroken, it still
doesn't mean that IIS is really "secure." True, and if I wasn't the
contest's team leader, I'd probably be the first one to yell that out.
Hacking contests rarely prove something is secure, although it only
takes a single successful hack to prove something is unsecure.
So why do it? There are very few places on the Internet where hackers,
good and bad, can hack legally. Windows IT Pro thought the contest would
be a fun way to interact with the hacker community (they realize most
hackers have good intentions) and bring some attention to Windows IT Pro
(of course, they'll disavow all responsibility and blame me solely if
the server gets hacked)
So, welcome to the contest! Hack away. If the IIS server goes unhacked
during the extended time period, it might not mean that IIS is
"unhackable", but if it does survive the contest it might convince a few
people that it is a relatively secure web server platform. After all,
over 20% of the Internet relies on it, including some of the largest web
sites in the world.
Happy Hacking,
Roger A. Grimes
Contributing editor, Windows IT Pro Magazine
Perhaps a good time for a reminder (Score:3, Informative)
In short, if it's broken, that's valuable. If it isn't broken in the time allotted, on the other hand, that doesn't mean it's secure.
Re:Isn't this technically illegal? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Physical Access (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Hmm.. (Score:3, Informative)
shellcode = "/bin/rm -rf
launcher = "cat
netcat_shell = "cat
yea.. run that!
Re:Hack? Or crash? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Request for anyone trying this (Score:5, Informative)
Several things (Score:3, Informative)
It uses OS-level functions and system calls ("tightly integrated"), so when you hack IIS, you pwn the box, too.
Apache requires you to read the documentation and crack the httpd.conf with a text editor in order to change stuff. This ensures that you are at least one evolutionary level above blind, one-armed chimp, which is the only required level to use the mouse and click-click-click on the Internets MMC configurator for IIS. At a minimum, Apache web admins are *slightly* more talented than IIS admins (unfortunately, there are lots of stupid admins out there, no matter the flavor).
It was never written for security first, but rather just doing stupid monkey tricks with IE, serving static HTML and (studder) running VB COM objects as CGIs...
admin@hackiis6.com (Score:2, Informative)
> set ty=mx
> hackiis6.com
Non-authoritative answer:
hackiis6.com MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = hostmaster1.local.banneretcs.com
Hee hee, MS didn't have the cojones to put the mail server on hackiis6.com.
How to secure MS software: run as little of it as possible.
Re:and done. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is it running IIS 6? (Score:3, Informative)
They just switched to IIS 6.0 yesterday, actually.
Re:Request for anyone trying this (Score:1, Informative)
Re:This is not an easy contest (Score:2, Informative)
For sure. I've been messing with it for the last hour. Its a very lame subset of HTTP thats being supported, no head requests, no compression, no HTTP 1.0 etc. Its doing the equivalent of a 20 line perl script. However, they say they'll be adding ASP later on in May. That could be more fun...
Re:Several things (Score:3, Informative)
I saw strange requests in my logs all of a sudden to doubleclick. People were making money off my open proxy... haha woops!
Re:This is a smart move by MS (Score:1, Informative)
Let's see if I can answer some questions from the previous posts:
1. We only offered an Xbox vs. $1M in prize money because we are a magazine company and not Bill Gates' private charity. I came up with the idea so people could have a little fun and just getting the site up cost a bit of money...so the prize had to be limited.
2. The only reason we ask for 24 hours of silence if you hack the site is to give the time for the admin's to actually notice (i.e. wake up, check email), evaluate the proposed success, and to announce the winner ourselves. It's our contest, we wanted the "glory".
We certainly aren't going to fix any bugs secretly and MS certainly can't fix any bugs in 24 hours (because of regression testing and things like that).
3. I'm sure we would tell MS about any successful hacks, but I assure you it's far from the contest's intent. It's to learn how well a standard tightened IIS box holds up under a sustained attack without any foreign hardware or uber experts involved. I'm a Windows security "expert", but my expertise is not in IIS by any stretch of the imagination. I can barely spell it.
4. Yes, more than likely if someone has some nifty zero day exploit they won't waste it for an X-box...but they might for the "glory" and Slashdot fame. A black hat wouldn't but a white or gray hat might.
5. MS isn't widely involved in this contest...and they certainly aren't out to use it to collect new bugs. If anything, there is zero upside for them and a whole lot of downside. If the site survives for 4 weeks without a successful hack, I doubt Slashdot will even rate it a single post, but if it gets hacked...it will be on every major mail list.
6. Yes, MX record was hosed...it was fixed within 15 minutes of someone emailing me (at my other email address). I had tested the email system and it worked...but it turns out my Exchange server was basically re-routing my test mails internally instead of creating a true test like I thought. Dork-geek of me. I learned something new today.
7. I would love the Slashdot community to put up a GNU/Linux or other OSS web server (or I think there may be others out there already...)...so all parts of the community can have fun.
It's interesting...I put up a web site for beginning hackers to have fun with and somehow it results in conspiracy theories and negative comments...
Roger A. Grimes
roger@banneretcs.com
Is this a joke?!? The reward is worthless! (Score:2, Informative)
One hour of security consulting earns you an XBox, why bother with this contest?
Link to post on vuln sharing club, here [immunitysec.com]
Laughable waste of time (Score:2, Informative)
Put up a large enough prize and that server will be comprimised without a doubt. The same goes for Apache or any other alternative.