Hue
Reversing - 450
Flag = WhiteHat{sha1(upper(key))}
Overview
The target is an 64-bit exe file statically linked to the MFC library. It is an MFC dialog-based application that has the WhiteHat icon and an about menu appended to the dialog's system menu.
The dialog has just 2 controls: an edit control and a push button. We tried several test input and hit the button but no message shown up. The button click just makes the application exit. We also tried to set breakpoints at GetWindowTextW and GetDlgItemTextW to find out when the application get text from the edit control but we still had no chance.
The challenge here is to find the program logic with no clue of how the input text is processed. We may start by investigating the mainCRTStartup, then AfxWinMain, then the inherited CWinApp::InitInstance ... However, we will mention another approach in this writeup: the application GUI components are hints to discover the program structure.
The dialog event handlers
To understand the program, we have to find the dialog event handlers. For MFC dialog-based applications, there are 2 main entry-points:
- The inherited CDialog::OnInitDialog.
- The GetThisMessageMap static method that returns the AFX_MSGMAP structure (you can read source code of BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP, END_MESSAGE_MAP and DECLARE_MESSAGE_MAP macros for more information). Here's the AFX_MSGMAP structure definition:
struct AFX_MSGMAP_ENTRY
{
UINT nMessage; // windows message
UINT nCode; // control code or WM_NOTIFY code
UINT nID; // control ID (or 0 for windows messages)
UINT nLastID; // used for entries specifying a range of control id's
UINT_PTR nSig; // signature type (action) or pointer to message #
AFX_PMSG pfn; // routine to call (or special value)
};
struct AFX_MSGMAP
{
const AFX_MSGMAP* (PASCAL* pfnGetBaseMap)();
const AFX_MSGMAP_ENTRY* lpEntries;
};
Finding the inherited CDialog::OnInitDialog
Our approach is based on the WhiteHat icon of this application. A dialog has no icon (more precisely, it has the default application icon) until we explicitly set new icon for it by sending WM_SETICON (0x0080) message. So we fire up WinDbg and set breakpoint at SendMessageW:
bp User32!SendMessageW ".if (rdx==0x80) {} .else {gc;}"
The breakpoint is hit twice, first with ICON_BIG (0x1) parameter, then ICON_SMALL (0x0). Here's the call stack when the breakpoint is hit:
USER32!SendMessageW
0x2408
0x16525
...
USER32!SendMessageW
0x2421
0x16525
Trace back to offset 0x2048 and offset 0x2421 we can easily find out that the inherited CDialog::OnInitDialog is at 0x2300.
We can use the same method with the about menu. This menu is appended to the dialog's system menu. To do so the dialog should call the GetSystemMenu function. By setting breakpoint at User32!GetSystemMenu we can also trace back to CDialog::OnInitDialog at 0x2300.
Actually all those setups are not neccessary to by placed at OnInitDialog, but they must be called after the dialog has been created (maybe in some event handlers). We would still use the same approach in that case.
Finding the message map
We try clicking the about menu ("About WhiteHatContest...") and an about dialog will show up. This means that the application should call one of the following functions:
- DialogBoxParamW
- DialogBoxIndrectParamW
- CreateDialogParamW
- CreateDialogIndrectParamW
We set breakpoints on all those function calls then try clicking the about menu again. Breakpoint is hit at CreateDialogIndirectParamW
USER32!CreateDialogIndirectParamW
0x173c7
0x1696d
0x16b1b
0x16d11
0x2543
0x22426
0x23f30
0x1df0a
0x1ea30
USER32!TranslateMessageEx+0x2a1
0x2543 is the lowest address in the call stack. We might guess that other addresses are from the MFC static library. From 0x2543 we can easily navigate to 0x2480 where the WM_SYSCOMMAND's handler starts. From there we just "Jump to xref" to locate the message map structure of the dialog at 0x211290:
.rdata:0140211288 dq offset Message_Map
.rdata:0140211290 Message_Map dd WM_SYSCOMMAND
.rdata:0140211294 dd 0
.rdata:0140211298 dd 0
.rdata:014021129C dd 0
.rdata:01402112A0 dq 1Fh
.rdata:01402112A8 dq offset sub_140002480 ; OnSysCommand
.rdata:01402112B0 dd WM_PAINT
.rdata:01402112B4 dd 0
.rdata:01402112B8 dd 0
.rdata:01402112BC dd 0
.rdata:01402112C0 dq 13h
.rdata:01402112C8 dq offset sub_1400025A0 ; OnPaint
.rdata:01402112D0 dd WM_QUERYDRAGICON
.rdata:01402112D4 dd 0
.rdata:01402112D8 dd 0
.rdata:01402112DC dd 0
.rdata:01402112E0 dq 29h
.rdata:01402112E8 dq offset sub_1400026D0 ; OnQueryDragIcon
.rdata:01402112F0 dd WM_COMMAND
.rdata:01402112F4 dd 0
.rdata:01402112F8 dd 3E9h ; ID of the OK button
.rdata:01402112FC dd 3E9h ; ID of the OK button
.rdata:0140211300 dq 3Ah
.rdata:0140211308 dq offset sub_1400026E0 ; OnOkCommand
.rdata:0140211310 dd 0 ; End of the structure, zero-filled
.rdata:0140211314 dd 0
.rdata:0140211318 dd 0
.rdata:014021131C dd 0
.rdata:0140211320 dd 0
.rdata:0140211324 dq 0
By doing a quick investigation on all those message handlers we figure out that they just do the "default" (MFC generated) tasks. The OK button handler just sends the message WM_NCDESTROY to the dialog, no input text check here. So we just need to focus on the inherited CDialog::OnInitDialog at 0x2300.
The main logic
Back to CDialog::OnInitDialog at 0x2300, there are just one small suspicous code snippet:
.text:01400023EE mov r9, [rdi+158h] ; lParam
.text:01400023F5 mov edx, WM_SETICON ; Msg
.text:01400023FA lea r8d, [rdx-7Fh] ; wParam
.text:01400023FE mov rcx, [rdi+40h] ; hWnd
.text:0140002402 call cs:SendMessageW
.text:0140002408 mov r9, [rdi+158h] ; lParam
.text:014000240F xor r8d, r8d ; wParam
.text:0140002412 mov edx, WM_SETICON ; Msg
.text:0140002417 mov rcx, [rdi+40h] ; hWnd
.text:014000241B call cs:SendMessageW
.text:0140002421 mov [rsp+68h+var_30], 0
.text:014000242A lea rcx, off_140210DA8 ; Method table of WTF class
.text:0140002431 mov [rsp+68h+wtf_obj], rcx
.text:0140002436 lea rcx, LibFileName ; "User32.dll"
.text:014000243D call cs:__imp_LoadLibraryW
.text:0140002443 mov [rsp+68h+var_20], rax
.text:0140002448 mov [rsp+68h+var_28], 0
.text:0140002450 lea rcx, [rsp+68h+wtf_obj]
.text:0140002455 call WTF_DoJob
.text:014000245A nop
The application initializes an instance of an unknown class that we named WTF. This class has method table at 0x210DA8. From there we can find all methods and analyze the data structure of the class. Here's the pseudo code of the WTF class:
int WTF::DoJob() {
WCHAR dirName[MAX_PATH];
WCHAR tmp[MAX_PATH];
m_Path = dirName;
if (GetFolderName(dirName)) return 1;
wcscpy_s(tmp, MAX_PATH, dirName); // Store the directory name for later use
EncryptString(dirName);
DoCheck();
if (m_OK)
// Then displaying the flag using User32!MessageBoxW
return 0;
}
int WTF::EncryptString(LPWSTR input) {
if (wcslen(input) != 42) return 1;
for (int i = 0; i < 42; i++) {
int j = i % 9;
if (j == 0) j = 1;
switch (i % j) {
case 1:
input[i] ^= 0xCC00; break;
case 4:
input[i] -= 0x100; break;
case 6:
input[i] = ~input[i]; break;
case 8:
input[i] -= 0x3C01; break;
default:
input[i] ^= 0xC3CC; break;
}
}
for (int i = 0; i < 42; i++) {
WCHAR delta = 0;
for (int j = 42; j > 0; j -= 2)
delta += i % j + i % (j - 1);
input[i] += delta;
}
return 0;
}
void WTF::DoCheck() {
DoCheck_00_20();
DoCheck_01_19();
DoCheck_02_18();
DoCheck_03_17();
DoCheck_04_16();
DoCheck_05_15();
DoCheck_06_14();
DoCheck_07_13();
DoCheck_08_12();
DoCheck_09_11();
DoCheck_10();
}
void WTF::DoCheck_00_20() {
DWORD *buf = (DWORD*)m_Path;
m_OK = (buf[0] == 0xC41EC3B7 && buf[20] == 0xCDCFC54C);
}
void WTF::DoCheck_01_19() {
DWORD *buf = (DWORD*)m_Path;
m_OK = (buf[1] == 0xC472C448 && buf[19] == 0xC57CC58A);
}
void WTF::DoCheck_02_18() {
DWORD *buf = (DWORD*)m_Path;
m_OK = (buf[2] == 0xC4B7C494 && buf[18] == 0xC597C592);
}
void WTF::DoCheck_03_17() {
DWORD *buf = (DWORD*)m_Path;
m_OK = (buf[3] == 0xC4F6C465 && buf[17] == 0xC5CB01A2);
}
void WTF::DoCheck_04_16() {
DWORD *buf = (DWORD*)m_Path;
m_OK = (buf[4] == 0xC532C513 && buf[16] == 0xC5E0C5E2);
}
void WTF::DoCheck_05_15() {
DWORD *buf = (DWORD*)m_Path;
m_OK = (buf[5] == 0xCDADC4D5 && buf[15] == 0xC586C5F0);
}
void WTF::DoCheck_06_14() {
DWORD *buf = (DWORD*)m_Path;
m_OK = (buf[6] == 0xCDCEC576 && buf[14] == 0xCE46C5F9);
}
void WTF::DoCheck_07_13() {
DWORD *buf = (DWORD*)m_Path;
m_OK = (buf[7] == 0xC5AE00ED && buf[13] == 0xC60FC59E);
}
void WTF::DoCheck_08_12() {
DWORD *buf = (DWORD*)m_Path;
m_OK = (buf[8] == 0xCE15C5BC && buf[12] == 0x152C5F9);
}
void WTF::DoCheck_09_11() {
DWORD *buf = (DWORD*)m_Path;
m_OK = (buf[9] == 0xC57EC5D7 && buf[11] == 0xC613C594);
}
void WTF::DoCheck_10() {
DWORD *buf = (DWORD*)m_Path;
m_OK = (buf[10] == 0xC5FCC5F1);
}
The logic is quite simple, key is an Unicode string of 42 characters. It is encrypted using xor, add (subtract) and not operations. The encrypted buffer is then compared every 4 bytes with a pre-calculated buffer. This class also has a decrypt method to inverse the encrypt operation.
Key generation
Here are the key and flag generated by our Python script:
Key: {94076F571DB19F9494E01C08BB1962F732089666}
Flag: WhiteHat{ef0d95c8e810ac272a1362236f02866bf51e72a0}
A final note on flag submission: although the key is a MSVC Unicode string (16-bit each character), we should UTF-8 encode it before getting sha1 checksum or else we would receive "wrong flag" message from the scoreboard!