Downgrade

Background

During recent auditing, we noticed that network authentication is not forced upon remote connections to our Windows 2012 server. That led us to investigate our system for suspicious logins further. Provided the server’s event logs, can you find any suspicious successful login?

Difficulty: Medium

Overall difficulty for me: Medium

In this challenge, you can spawn a docker instance and download a file:

┌──(root🌸siunam)-[~/ctf/HackTheBoo/Forensics/Downgrade]
└─# unzip forensics_downgrade.zip 
Archive:  forensics_downgrade.zip
  inflating: Logs/Application.evtx   
  inflating: Logs/HardwareEvents.evtx  
  inflating: Logs/Internet Explorer.evtx  
  inflating: Logs/Key Management Service.evtx  
  inflating: Logs/Microsoft-Windows-ApplicationResourceManagementSystem%4Operational.evtx  
  inflating: Logs/Microsoft-Windows-AppModel-Runtime%4Admin.evtx  
  inflating: Logs/Microsoft-Windows-AppReadiness%4Admin.evtx  
  inflating: Logs/Microsoft-Windows-AppReadiness%4Operational.evtx  
  inflating: Logs/Microsoft-Windows-AppXDeployment%4Operational.evtx  
[...]

Bunch of Windows Event Logs!

Find the flag

Question 1

┌──(root🌸siunam)-[~/ctf/HackTheBoo/Forensics/Downgrade]
└─# nc 161.35.164.157 31944 

+-----------+---------------------------------------------------------+
|   Title   |                       Description                       |
+-----------+---------------------------------------------------------+
| Downgrade |         During recent auditing, we noticed that         |
|           |     network authentication is not forced upon remote    |
|           |       connections to our Windows 2012 server. That      |
|           |           led us to investigate our system for          |
|           |  suspicious logins further. Provided the server's event |
|           |       logs, can you find any suspicious successful      |
|           |                          login?                         |
+-----------+---------------------------------------------------------+

Which event log contains information about logon and logoff events? (for example: Setup)
> 

To inspect those logs, I’ll fire up my Windows 10 Pro virtual machine, and transfer those logs:

┌──(root🌸siunam)-[~/ctf/HackTheBoo/Forensics/Downgrade]
└─# python3 -m http.server 80    
Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 80 (http://0.0.0.0:80/) ...

PS C:\Users\Student\Desktop> Invoke-WebRequest -Uri http://192.168.183.141/forensics_downgrade.zip -OutFile forensics_downgrade.zip

In the Event Viewer, we can see that Security contains information about logon and logoff events:

Answer: Security

Which event log contains information about logon and logoff events? (for example: Setup)

> Security     
[+] Correct!

Question 2

What is the event id for logs for a successful logon to a local computer? (for example: 1337)
> 

Answer: 4624

What is the event id for logs for a successful logon to a local computer? (for example: 1337)
> 4624
[+] Correct!

Question 3

Which is the default Active Directory authentication protocol? (for example: http)
>

Answer: Kerberos

Which is the default Active Directory authentication protocol? (for example: http)
> Kerberos
[+] Correct!

Question 4

Looking at all the logon events, what is the AuthPackage that stands out as different from all the rest? (for example: http)
>

Answer: NTLM

Looking at all the logon events, what is the AuthPackage that stands out as different from all the rest? (for example: http)

> NTLM
[+] Correct!

Question 5

What is the timestamp of the suspicious login (yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss) UTC? (for example, 2021-10-10T08:23:12)
>

After going through all the NTLM AuthPackage, I found 1 login log very sussy:

WorkstationName: kali

Hmm… This looks like is the attacker, let’s grep the UTC timestamp:

Answer: 2022-09-28T13:10:57

What is the timestamp of the suspicious login (yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss) UTC? (for example, 2021-10-10T08:23:12)
> 2022-09-28T13:10:57
[+] Correct!

[+] Here is the flag: HTB{4n0th3r_d4y_4n0th3r_d0wngr4d3...}

We got the flag!

Conclusion

What we’ve learned:

Windows Event Viewer Digital Forensics