Awesome
faxhell ("Fax Shell")
A Proof-of-Concept bind shell using the Fax
service and a DLL hijack based on Ualapi.dll
.
See our writeup at: https://windows-internals.com/faxing-your-way-to-system/
How to use
- Build
Ualapi.dll
and place inc:\windows\system32
- Start the
Fax
service, which will load the DLL and call the exportUalStart
.UalStart
will queue a thread pool work item that will open a handle toRpcSs
, find aSYSTEM
token, and then impersonate it. Afterward, it will create a socket on the local endpoint address, bind it to port9299
, and then asynchronously wait for a connection using a thread pool I/O completion port. - Connect to the socket on port 9299 using your favorite client (such
nc(at).exe <ip> 9299
) and then typelet me in
and pressENTER
. If you're writing custom code, make sure to send the stringlet me in\n
. - The I/O completion packet will then wake up the thread pool callback, which will start a
Cmd.exe
process under theDcomLaunch
service withSYSTEM
privileges, binding its input and output handles to the newly created socket. - Win!
EDR / AV evasion
- Uses a service that is not commonly known and not monitored or flagged as suspicious by EDR vendors.
- Uses the Windows thread pool API to do setup, making stacks harder to read, offloading work through multiple threads, and avoiding easy "hints" that something suspicious is happening.
- The lifetime of the impersonated tokens is very small, and only the worker thread ever runs as
SYSTEM
, reverting back toNETWORK SERVICE
very quickly and after only doing one API call. This helps reduce the chance of getting caught by various scanners. - Uses uncommon socket APIs that make the import table less suspicious and avoids EDR detections, IOCTL hooks, and LSPs.
- Creates the bind shell under the
DcomLaunch
service (which is already aSYSTEM
service) and not under theFax
service, making it look a lot more natural and avoiding a very suspicious-looking process tree. - Leverages a Windows bug that makes it look as if our socket belongs to the
Fax
service, and not toDcomLaunch
orCmd.exe
. If we kill theFax
service it looks like socket belongs toSystem
.
Caveats
This isn't meant to be a drop-in, undetectable, malicious, weaponized shell:
- It is only a bind shell, which most firewalls will prevent. Opening firewall rules, or using a reverse bind shell, or doing communications over a common port such as
80
or443
would work better. - Other services, notably the
Spooler
, also loadUalapi.dll
. While the system behaves fine if theFax
service is "stuck" in theSERVICE_START_PENDING
state, this will cause issues inSpoolsv.exe
. - There's probably bugs/memory leaks in the PoC -- we tried our best to make things production quality, but we did not run things through Application Verifier or asan.