Steps To Deface A Webpage (About Defacers)

by: b0iler

First of all, I do not deface, I never have (besides friends sites as jokes and all in good fun), and never will. So how do I know how to deface? I guess I just picked it up on the way, so I am no expert in this. If I get a thing or two wrong I apoligize. It is pretty simple when you think that defacing is just replacing a file on a computer. Now, finding the exploit in the first place, that takes skill, that takes knowledge, that is what real hackers are made of. I don't encourage that you deface any sites, as this can be used get credit cards, get passwords, get source code, billing info, email databases, etc.. (it is only right to put up some kind of warning. now go have fun ;)

This tutorial will be broken down into 3 main sections, they are as followed:
1. Finding Vuln Hosts.
2. Getting In.
3. Covering Your Tracks

It really is easy, and I will show you how easy it is.

1. Finding Vuln Hosts
This section needs to be further broken down into two catigories of script kiddies: ones who scan the net for a host that is vuln to a certain exploit and ones who search a certain site for any exploit. The ones you see on alldas are the first kind, they scan thousands of sites for a specific exploit. They do not care who they hack, anyone will do. They have no set target and not much of a purpose. In my opinion these people should either have a cause behind what they are doing, ie. "I make sure people keep up to date with security, I am a messanger" or "I am spreading a political message, I use defacments to get media attention". People who deface to get famous or to show off their skills need to grow up and relize there is a better way of going about this (not that I support the ones with other reasons ether). Anyways, the two kinds and what you need to know about them:

Scanning Script Kiddie: You need to know what signs of the hole are, is it a service? A certain OS? A CGI file? How can you tell if they are vuln? What version(s) are vuln? You need to know how to search the net to find targets which are running whatever is vuln. Use altavista.com or google.com for web based exploits. Using a script to scan ip ranges for a certain port that runs the vuln service. Or using netcraft.com to find out what kind of server they are running and what extras it runs (frontpage, php, etc..) nmap and other port scanners allow quick scans of thousands of ips for open ports. This is a favorate technique of those guys you see with mass hacks on alldas.

Targetted Site Script Kiddie: More respectable then the script kiddies who hack any old site. The main step here is gathering as much information about a site as possible. Find out what OS they run at netcraft or by using: telnet www.site.com 80 then GET / HTTP/1.1 Find out what services they run by doing a port scan. Find out the specifics on the services by telnetting to them. Find any cgi script, or other files which could allow access to the server if exploited by checking /cgi /cgi-bin and browsing around the site (remember to index browse)

Wasn't so hard to get the info was it? It may take awhile, but go through the site slowly and get all the information you can.

2. Getting In
Now that we got the info on the site we can find the exploit(s) we can use to get access. If you were a scanning script kiddie you would know the exploit ahead of time. A couple of great places to look for exploits are Security Focus and packetstorm. Once you get the exploit check and make sure that the exploit is for the same version as the service, OS, script, etc.. Exploits mainly come in two languages, the most used are C and perl. Perl scripts will end in .pl or .cgi, while C will end in .c To compile a C file (on *nix systems) do gcc -o exploit12 file.c then: ./exploit12 For perl just do: chmod 700 file.pl (not really needed) then: perl file.pl. If it is not a script it might be a very simple exploit, or just a theory of a possible exploit. Just do alittle research into how to use it. Another thing you need to check is weither the exploit is remote or local. If it is local you must have an account or physical access to the computer. If it is remote you can do it over a network (internet).

Don't go compiling exploits just yet, there is one more important thing you need to know

Covering Your Tracks
So by now you have gotten the info on the host inorder to find an exploit that will allow you to get access. So why not do it? The problem with covering your tracks isn't that it is hard, rather that it is unpredictable. just because you killed the sys logging doesn't mean that they don't have another logger or IDS running somewhere else. (even on another box). Since most script kiddies don't know the skill of the admin they are targetting they have no way of knowing if they have additional loggers or what. Instead the script kiddie makes it very hard (next to impossible) for the admin to track them down. Many use a stolden or second isp account to begin with, so even if they get tracked they won't get caught. If you don't have the luxery of this then you MUST use multiple wingates, shell accounts, or trojans to bounce off of. Linking them together will make it very hard for someone to track you down. Logs on the wingates and shells will most likely be erased after like 2-7 days. That is if logs are kept at all. It is hard enough to even get ahold of one admin in a week, let alone further tracking the script kiddie down to the next wingate or shell and then getting ahold of that admin all before the logs of any are erased. And it is rare for an admin to even notice an attack, even a smaller percent will actively pursue the attacker at all and will just secure their box and forget it ever happend. For the sake of arugment lets just say if you use wingates and shells, don't do anything to piss the admin off too much (which will get them to call authoritizes or try to track you down) and you deleting logs you will be safe. So how do you do it?

We will keep this very short and too the point, so we'll need to get a few wingates. Wingates by nature tend to change IPs or shutdown all the time, so you need an updated list or program to scan the net for them. You can get a list of wingates that is well updated at http://www.cyberarmy.com/lists/wingate/ and you can also get a program called winscan there. Now lets say we have 3 wingates:

212.96.195.33 port 23
202.134.244.215 port 1080
203.87.131.9 port 23

to use them we go to telnet and connect to them on port 23. we should get a responce like this:

CSM Proxy Server >

to connect to the next wingate we just type in it's ip:port

CSM Proxy Server >202.134.244.215:1080
If you get an error it is most likely to be that the proxy you are trying to connect to isn't up, or that you need to login to the proxy. If all goes well you will get the 3 chained together and have a shell account you are able to connect to. Once you are in your shell account you can link shells together by:

[j00@server j00]$ ssh 212.23.53.74

You can get free shells to work with until you get some hacked shells, here is a list of free shell accounts. And please remember to sign up with false information and from a wingate if possible.

SDF (freeshell.org) - http://sdf.lonestar.org
GREX (cyberspace.org) - http://www.grex.org
NYX - http://www.nxy.net
ShellYeah - http://www.shellyeah.org
HOBBITON.org - http://www.hobbiton.org
FreeShells - http://www.freeshells.net
DucTape - http://www.ductape.net
Free.Net.Pl (Polish server) - http://www.free.net.pl
XOX.pl (Polish server) - http://www.xox.pl
IProtection - http://www.iprotection.com
CORONUS - http://www.coronus.com
ODD.org - http://www.odd.org
MARMOSET - http://www.marmoset.net
flame.org - http://www.flame.org
freeshells - http://freeshells.net.pk
LinuxShell - http://www.linuxshell.org
takiweb - http://www.takiweb.com
FreePort - http://freeport.xenos.net
BSDSHELL - http://free.bsdshell.net
ROOTshell.be - http://www.rootshell.be
shellasylum.com - http://www.shellasylum.com
Daforest - http://www.daforest.org
FreedomShell.com - http://www.freedomshell.com
LuxAdmin - http://www.luxadmin.org
shellweb - http://shellweb.net
blekko - http://blekko.net

once you get on your last shell you can compile the exploit, and you should be safe from being tracked. But lets be even more sure and delete the evidence that we were there.

Alright, there are a few things on the server side that all script kiddies need to be aware of. Mostly these are logs that you must delete or edit. The real script kiddies might even use a rootkit to automaticly delete the logs. Although lets assume you aren't that lame. There are two main logging daemons which I will cover, klogd which is the kernel logs, and syslogd which is the system logs. First step is to kill the daemons so they don't log anymore of your actions.

[root@hacked root]# ps -def | grep syslogd
[root@hacked root]# kill -9 pid_of_syslogd

in the first line we are finding the pid of the syslogd, in the second we are killing the daemon. You can also use /etc/syslog.pid to find the pid of syslogd.

[root@hacked root]# ps -def | grep klogd
[root@hacked root]# kill -9 pid_of_klogd

Same thing happening here with klogd as we did with syslogd.

now that killed the default loggers the script kiddie needs to delete themself from the logs. To find where syslogd puts it's logs check the /etc/syslog.conf file. Of course if you don't care if the admin knows you were there you can delete the logs completely. Lets say you are the lamest of the script kiddies, a defacer, the admin would know that the box has been comprimised since the website was defaced. So there is no point in appending the logs, they would just delete them. The reason we are appending them is so that the admin will not even know a break in has accurd. I'll go over the main reasons people break into a box:


To deface the website. - this is really lame, since it has no point and just damages the system.


To sniff for other network passwords. - there are programs which allow you to sniff other passwords sent from and to the box. If this box is on an ethernet network then you can even sniff packets (which contain passwords) that are destine to any box in that segment.


To mount a DDoS attack. - another lame reason, the admin has a high chance of noticing that you comprimised him once you start sending hundreds of MBs through his connection.


To mount another attack on a box. - this and sniffing is the most commonly used, not lame, reason for exploiting something. Since you now how a rootshell you can mount your attack from this box instead of those crappy freeshells. And you now have control over the logging of the shell.


To get sensitive info. - some corperate boxes have alot of valueable info on them. Credit card databases, source code for software, user/password lists, and other top secret info that a hacker may want to have.


To learn and have fun. - many people do it for the thrill of hacking, and the knowledge you gain. I don't see this as horrible a crime as defacing. as long as you don't destroy anything I don't think this is very bad. Infact some people will even help the admin patch the hole. Still illegal though, and best not to break into anyone's box.


I'll go over the basic log files: utmp, wtmp, lastlog, and .bash_history
These files are usually in /var/log/ but I have heard of them being in /etc/ /usr/bin/ and other places. Since it is different on alot of boxes it is best to just do a find / -iname 'utmp'|find / -iname 'wtmp'|find / -iname 'lastlog'. and also search threw the /usr/ /var/ and /etc/ directories for other logs. Now for the explanation of these 3.

utmp is the log file for who is on the system, I think you can see why this log should be appended. Because you do not want to let anyone know you are in the system. wtmp logs the logins and logouts as well as other info you want to keep away from the admin. Should be appended to show that you never logged in or out. and lastlog is a file which keeps records of all logins. Your shell's history is another file that keeps a log of all the commands you issued, you should look for it in your $ HOME directory and edit it, .sh_history, .history, and .bash_history are the common names. you should only append these log files, not delete them. if you delete them it will be like holding a big sign infront of the admin saying "You've been hacked". Newbie script kiddies often deface and then rm -rf / to be safe. I would avoid this unless you are really freaking out. In this case I would suggest that you never try to exploit a box again. Another way to find log files is to run a script to check for open files (and then manually look at them to determine if they are logs) or do a find for files which have been editted, this command would be: find / -ctime 0 -print

A few popular scripts which can hide your presence from logs include: zap, clear and cloak. Zap will replace your presence in the logs with 0's, clear will clear the logs of your presence, and cloak will replace your presence with different information. acct-cleaner is the only heavily used script in deleting account logging from my experience. Most rootkits have a log cleaning script, and once you installed it logs are not kept of you anyways. If you are on NT the logs are at C:\winNT\system32\LogFiles\, just delete them, nt admins most likely don't check them or don't know what it means if they are deleted.

One final thing about covering your tracks, I won't go to into detail about this because it would require a tutorial all to itself. I am talking about rootkits. What are rootkits? They are a very widely used tool used to cover your tracks once you get into a box. They will make staying hidden painfree and very easy. What they do is replace the binaries like login, ps, and who to not show your presence, ever. They will allow you to login without a password, without being logged by wtmp or lastlog and without even being in the /etc/passwd file. They also make commands like ps not show your processes, so no one knows what programs you are running. They send out fake reports on netstat, ls, and w so that everything looks the way it normally would, except anything you do is missing. But there are some flaws in rootkits, for one some commands produce strange effects because the binary was not made correctly. They also leave fingerprints (ways to tell that the file is from a rootkit). Only smart/good admins check for rootkits, so this isn't the biggest threat, but it should be concidered. Rootkits that come with a LKM (loadable kernel module) are usually the best as they can pretty much make you totally invisible to all others and most admins wouldn't be able to tell they were comprimised.

In writting this tutorial I have mixed feelings. I do not want more script kiddies out their scanning hundreds of sites for the next exploit. And I don't want my name on any shouts. I rather would like to have people say "mmm, that defacing crap is pretty lame" especially when people with no lives scan for exploits everyday just to get their name on a site for a few minutes. I feel alot of people are learning everything but what they need to know inorder to break into boxes. Maybe this tutorial cut to the chase alittle and helps people with some knowledge see how simple it is and hopefully make them see that getting into a system is not all it's hyped up to be. It is not by any means a full guide, I did not cover alot of things. I hope admins found this tutorial helpful aswell, learning that no matter what site you run you should always keep on top of the latest exploits and patch them. Protect yourself with IDS and try finding holes on your own system (both with vuln scanners and by hand). Also setting up an external box to log is not a bad idea. Admins should have also seen alittle bit into the mind of a script kiddie and learned a few things he does.. this should help you catch one if they break into your systems.

On one final note, defacing is lame. I know many people who have defaced in the past and regret it now. You will be labeled a script kiddie and a lamer for a long, long time.

Excel Inputs

Here’s how to add spinners, check boxes, and other useful controls to your worksheets.

Even if you’ve used Excel for years, you may not know about its form controls, which let you enter worksheet values using elements like sliders, spinners, list boxes, and check boxes. We’ll show you how these controls work, give you handy tips for customizing them, and look at some applications.

The Spinner Control

The spinner lets you alter the value in a cell by clicking an up or down arrow on the control. The techniques for customizing spinners also apply to scroll-bar controls, so you’re learning two controls in one, effectively.

Create a simple savings worksheet by entering the data shown in the table below. Note that row 6 is blank.

Cell Value

A1 Savings calculator

A2 Interest rate p.a.

B2 6%

A3 Number of years

B3 4

A4 Monthly deposit

B4 -200

A5 Initial balance

B5 -100

A7 Amount saved

B7 =FV(B2/12, B3*12, B4, B5, 0)

This worksheet calculates the amount saved at the end of four years if you start with $100 and save $200 a month at an interest rate of 6 percent compounded monthly. Monies paid out are expressed as negative values, so your starting deposit and the monthly payments are negative. This simple example offers plenty of options for using spinners.

Begin by creating a spinner to adjust the number of years shown in cell B3. Choose View Toolbars Forms to display the Forms toolbar and locate the Spinner control. Click the control and place it by using your mouse to draw a rectangle in cell C3. Right-click the control, choose Format Control..., and select the Control tab. Set the Current value to 4, the Maximum value to 20, and the Cell link to B3, then click OK.

Deselect the spinner by clicking away from it in the worksheet; test the spinner by clicking its up and down arrows. As you click, the value in the linked cell (B3) should increase or decrease within the specified range.

Overcoming Limitations

Spinners are limited to returning integers between 0 and 30,000, but you can get a range of real numbers (including negative numbers) by performing some simple arithmetic on the value returned by the spinner. To show how this is done, we’ll add a second spinner to adjust the interest rate in quarter-point increments.

Place the spinner in cell C2 and right-click on it. Choose Format Control..., select the Control tab, and set the Current value to 24, the Maximum value to 40, and the Cell link to E2, then click OK. Now format cell B2 to show percentage with two decimal places, and alter the cell’s contents to read: =E2/400. When you click the new spinner, you’ll see the value in cell B2 change in increments of .25 percent, from 0 to 10 percent. The new formula in B2 takes the value the spinner returns in cell E2 (a number from 0 to 40) and divides it by 400 to produce the displayed value.

You can also create a spinner to give you the negative value that represents your monthly deposit. Add a third spinner, this time in cell C4. Set the Current value to 200, the Maximum value to 30000, the Incremental change to 10, and the Cell link to E4, then click OK. In cell B4, type -E4 and test the spinner. The E4 value will change in increments of 10 within the range 0 to 30000, giving B4 values ranging from 0 to -30000. You can create a range of values by using a different formula or by modifying parameters like the maximum value.

Check Boxes

Check boxes are controls that return either true or false, depending on whether they are selected or cleared. They are useful for managing options that have only two possible settings, such as on/off, true/false, or 1/0. In our example, the last argument in the formula in cell B7 is currently set to 0, which indicates that the payment (the amount saved each month) is due at the end of every month. Changing this value to 1 alters the calculation to show the result when payments are made at the beginning of each month. This is a good use for a check box.

Click the Check Box control and add a check box into cell B6. Right-click this control and choose Format Control... Control tab. From the Value options choose Unchecked. Set the Cell link to E6 and click OK. Alter the formula in cell B7 to read: =FV(B2/12, B3*12, B4, B5, E6)

Change the check box’s text by right-clicking it and choosing Edit Text. In place of the current text, type: Payments made at beginning of period, then adjust the size of the control so the text can be clearly seen. Test the box by clicking in it; the value in cell B7 should change according to whether the check box is selected or not.

Combo Boxes

The final control we’ll look at is the combo box, which lets you choose an entry from a list. Combo boxes are handy when you have a fixed number of choices and can be used to return more than one piece of data from a table of data.

To understand more about the combo box control (and its close relative, the list box), type these values into a blank worksheet.

Cell Value

A2 J. Brown

B2 CA

C2 10%

A3 P. Smith

B3 NY

C3 12%

A4 J. Peters

B4 TX

C4 9%

A7 Sales

B7 Salesperson

C7 State

D7 Commission

A8 200000

C8 =INDEX(A2:C4,E2,2)

D8 =INDEX(A2:C4,E2,3)*A8

Ignore the errors that appear in cells C8 and D8. Click the Combo Box control and draw a combo box in cell B8. Right-click the control, choose Format Control... and the Control tab, set the Input Range to A2:A4, set the Cell link to cell E2, and click OK. You can now choose a salesperson from the combo box. When you do so, the person’s state will appear in cell C8 and the commission amount will appear in cell D8.

The combo box control returns the position of the selected item in the Input range list. The first item—J. Brown, in this example—is in position 1. In our sample worksheet, each INDEX function queries the array A2:C4 and returns the value in the row and column specified by the formula. The row number is the value returned in cell E2 by the combo box. The column number is supplied in the INDEX function itself.

Note that the data in column E is necessary but does not have to be visible. You can hide it by right-clicking the column and choosing Hide.

This covers the basics of using form controls on your worksheets. You’ll find other controls on the Forms toolbar, such as the Option Button, the List Box, and the Scroll Bar. Each of these works in a similar way to one of the controls we’ve looked at. Option buttons work like check boxes, but only one at a time can be selected. Scroll bars work like spinners, but also include sliders. List boxes work like combo boxes, but the full list can be visible. Some controls on the toolbar are grayed; these cannot be used on worksheets. See the sidebar for directions to Microsoft Knowledge Base articles that discuss these controls.

The System Boot Process Explained

The typical computer system boots over and over again with no problems, starting the computer's operating system (OS) and identifying its hardware and software components that all work together to provide the user with the complete computing experience. But what happens between the time that the user powers up the computer and when the GUI icons appear on the desktop?

In order for a computer to successfully boot, its BIOS, operating system and hardware components must all be working properly; failure of any one of these three elements will likely result in a failed boot sequence.

When the computer's power is first turned on, the CPU initializes itself, which is triggered by a series of clock ticks generated by the system clock. Part of the CPU's initialization is to look to the system's ROM BIOS for its first instruction in the startup program. The ROM BIOS stores the first instruction, which is the instruction to run the power-on self test (POST), in a predetermined memory address.

POST begins by checking the BIOS chip and then tests CMOS RAM. If the POST does not detect a battery failure, it then continues to initialize the CPU, checking the inventoried hardware devices (such as the video card), secondary storage devices, such as hard drives and floppy drives, ports and other hardware devices, such as the keyboard and mouse, to ensure they are functioning properly.

Once the POST has determined that all components are functioning properly and the CPU has successfully initialized, the BIOS looks for an OS to load. The BIOS typically looks to the CMOS chip to tell it where to find the OS, and in most PCs, the OS loads from the C drive on the hard drive even though the BIOS has the capability to load the OS from a floppy disk, CD or ZIP drive. The order of drives that the CMOS looks to in order to locate the OS is called the boot sequence, which can be changed by altering the CMOS setup. Looking to the appropriate boot drive, the BIOS will first encounter the boot record, which tells it where to find the beginning of the OS and the subsequent program file that will initialize the OS.

Once the OS initializes, the BIOS copies its files into memory and the OS basically takes over control of the boot process. Now in control, the OS performs another inventory of the system's memory and memory availability (which the BIOS already checked) and loads the device drivers that it needs to control the peripheral devices, such as a printer, scanner, optical drive, mouse and keyboard. This is the final stage in the boot process, after which the user can access the system’s applications to perform tasks.

Source: http://www.webopedia.com