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.
If you find something, report it. Don’t experiment on the public.
https://www.bugcrowd.com/resources/guide/what-is-responsible-disclosure/
My first thought was that a Javascript library pulled from a CDN got spiked.
Is this, by any chance, originated from the sub called
ignore
? In that case is probably my bad because is set as the image of the channel. (I was playing with lemmy in the previous version and forgot about it, sorry. It will not work since your browser can’t access local file that easily without breaking the sandbox :))Edit: I removed it so you shouldn’t see the alert anymore. What I wasn’t expecting is that apparently every sub is loaded even if you don’t visit it.
But… why? Why even put that URL there? Even if it was most likely harmless for all users, this still looks like an attempt at data exfiltration.
Because I wanted to try if others URI schemas were supported instead of http / https. file:// was a valid one. Don’t worry, the day an attempt of data exfil will happen, you will not see it though your console logs.
Holy shit this is kind of unsettling. Though I would expect ALL major browsers to reject reading any local files like this… would this kind of thing actually succeed somewhere/somehow?
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.
you don’t need to be root to read
/etc/passwd
That’s because passwd doesn’t store the password hashes. Just user names.
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
yup pretty sure
$ cat /etc/passwd fox:hunter2:1000:1000::/home/fox:/usr/bin/zsh
😉
Weird, all I see is *******
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
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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.
Can confirm it’s still there for the
ignore me
community.Nice share, thanks for the information. Definitely need to be careful both as a server operator with Lemmy, and a user of it.
While this is concerning, I wonder what the author(s) of this were thinking would happen. I assume it’s supposed to be an attempt at stealing the server’s passwords, since I at least know of no browser that freely allows access to local files.
FWIW,
/etc/passwd
itself contains no passwords (the name exists for historical reasons) but it definitely is a globally accessible file that can give you clues about the target system. Given this, it’s more likely the user is attempting to find out if arbitrary disk reads are possible by using a well known path on many servers.