this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2023
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Found the error Not allowed to load local resource: file:///etc/passwd while looking at infosec.pub's communities page. There's a community called "ignore me" that adds a few image tags trying to steal your passwd file.

You have to be extremely poorly configured for this to work, but the red flags you see should keep you on your toes for the red flags you don't.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

If you ran your browser as root and configured your browser to load local resources on non-local domains maybe. I think you can do that in chrome://flags but you have to explicitly list the domains allowed to do it.

I'm hoping this is just a bad joke.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

you don't need to be root to read /etc/passwd

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

That’s because passwd doesn’t store the password hashes. Just user names.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Are you sure? What do you get when you run $ cat /etc/passwd in terminal? Just paste the results here 😇

Edit: to anyone reading this on the future, don't actually do this, it was a joke

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

yup pretty sure

$ cat /etc/passwd
fox:hunter2:1000:1000::/home/fox:/usr/bin/zsh

😉

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Weird, all I see is *******

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Since you told me not to. There isn't a risk on most linux systems; passwords were moved to /etc/shadow a long time ago. It only leaks the names of your users and largely useless info for most attackers:

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/usr/sbin/nologin
bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/usr/sbin/nologin
sys:x:3:3:sys:/dev:/usr/sbin/nologin
sync:x:4:65534:sync:/bin:/bin/sync
games:x:5:60:games:/usr/games:/usr/sbin/nologin
man:x:6:12:man:/var/cache/man:/usr/sbin/nologin
lp:x:7:7:lp:/var/spool/lpd:/usr/sbin/nologin
mail:x:8:8:mail:/var/mail:/usr/sbin/nologin
news:x:9:9:news:/var/spool/news:/usr/sbin/nologin
uucp:x:10:10:uucp:/var/spool/uucp:/usr/sbin/nologin
proxy:x:13:13:proxy:/bin:/usr/sbin/nologin
www-data:x:33:33:www-data:/var/www:/usr/sbin/nologin
backup:x:34:34:backup:/var/backups:/usr/sbin/nologin
list:x:38:38:Mailing List Manager:/var/list:/usr/sbin/nologin
irc:x:39:39:ircd:/run/ircd:/usr/sbin/nologin
gnats:x:41:41:Gnats Bug-Reporting System (admin):/var/lib/gnats:/usr/sbin/nologin
nobody:x:65534:65534:nobody:/nonexistent:/usr/sbin/nologin
_apt:x:100:65534::/nonexistent:/usr/sbin/nologin
systemd-network:x:101:102:systemd Network Management,,,:/run/systemd:/usr/sbin/nologin
systemd-resolve:x:102:103:systemd Resolver,,,:/run/systemd:/usr/sbin/nologin
messagebus:x:999:999:System Message Bus:/:/usr/sbin/nologin
systemd-timesync:x:998:998:systemd Time Synchronization:/:/usr/sbin/nologin
systemd-coredump:x:997:997:systemd Core Dumper:/:/usr/sbin/nologin
delial:x:1000:1000:,,,:/home/delial:/bin/bash
sshd:x:103:65534::/run/sshd:/usr/sbin/nologin
xrdp:x:104:110::/run/xrdp:/usr/sbin/nologin
dictd:x:105:111:Dictd Server,,,:/var/lib/dictd:/usr/sbin/nologin
nm-openvpn:x:106:112:NetworkManager OpenVPN,,,:/var/lib/openvpn/chroot:/usr/sbin/nologin
sssd:x:107:113:SSSD system user,,,:/var/lib/sss:/usr/sbin/nologin
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Well it's not completely useless. It offers some insights into the system. Which service accounts exists, what usernames are used.

If an attacker finds a valid username they can then start bruteforcing the password.

From your account list we can see you have sshd and xrdp. Do they both provide the same kind of bruteforce protection? Are there any recent exploits for either?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, seems highly unlikely to ever yield any results. Even if you did manage to read a file, you have to get lucky finding a password hash in a rainbow table or the password being shit enough to crack.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Also generally the actual password (or rather its hash) is stored in /etc/shadow on most systems from the past 20 odd years.