Time's Up, For the Last Time!

Problem

You've solved things fast. You've solved things faster! Now do the impossible. times-up-one-last-time, located in the directory at /problems/time-s-up--for-the-last-time-_5_b2df97b433878873b16cff47337769d6.

Solution

  1. Running the program and inputting a newline character (\n) with bash is not fast enough.

    Running previous challenges in this way produced Solution? Nope!:

     $ ./times-up <<< '\n'
 Challenge: (((((657265146) + (-1923909696)) + ((1986179264) + (-812103564))) + (((-1027939860) + (1392242872)) + ((-110733888) + (-310598076)))) + ((((((720637104) + (-2047273348)) - (708133016)) - (-890325910)) - ((443949727) - (1909030317))) + (((-301107515) - (551799480)) - ((1489532366) + (1475102980)))))
 Setting alarm...
 Solution? Nope!

    However, this challenge does not even register the input since the alarm triggers so fast:

     $ ./times-up-one-last-time <<< '\n'
 Challenge: (((((-1012045115) - (1810430134)) % ((2010494120) + (-1086432160))) - (((-403630830) % (596322993)) ^ ((-1348370583) * (2088348720)))) | ((((1271304372) + (1954174030)) x ((-376311670) o (-407368940))) & (((-1044627813) - (1022249799)) | ((-1080733304) | (1758513321)))))
 Setting alarm...
 Alarm clock

  2. The time for the alarm to trigger is now 10 microseconds (10 uSections). It is unlikely that any script will solve this if we can't even get any input into the program. Decompile the binary file using Ghidra (cheat sheet). main() function (Ghidra was not able to determine names):

     undefined8 FUN_00100eae(void)

 {
 FUN_00100ad0();
 printf("Challenge: ");
 FUN_00100e96();
 putchar(10);
 fflush(stdout);
 puts("Setting alarm...");
 fflush(stdout);
 ualarm(10,0);
 printf("Solution? ");
 __isoc99_scanf(&DAT_001011b8,&DAT_00304770);
 if (DAT_00304770 == DAT_00304778) {
     puts("Congrats! Here is the flag!");
     system("/bin/cat flag.txt");
 }
 else {
     puts("Nope!");
 }
 return 0;
 }

  3. There are also weird new operators. Going into the source code we find the function that appears to solve the expression generated (comments are ascii conversions added by me):

     ulong FUN_00100ca2(undefined param_1,ulong param_2,ulong param_3)

 {
 switch(param_1) {
 case 0x25: // %
     if (param_3 != 0) {
     param_2 = (long)param_2 % param_3;
     }
     break;
 case 0x26: // &
     param_2 = param_2 & param_3;
     break;
 default:
                     /* WARNING: Subroutine does not return */
     exit(1);
 case 0x2a: // *
     param_2 = param_2 * param_3;
     break;
 case 0x2b: // +
     param_2 = param_3 + param_2;
     break;
 case 0x2d: // -
     param_2 = param_2 - param_3;
     break;
 case 0x2f: // /
     if (param_3 != 0) {
     param_2 = (long)param_2 / (long)param_3;
     }
     break;
 case 0x5e: // ^
     param_2 = param_2 ^ param_3;
     break;
 case 0x66: // f
     break;
 case 0x6f: // o
     param_2 = param_3;
     break;
 case 0x72: // r
     param_2 = param_3;
     break;
 case 0x74: // t
     break;
 case 0x78: // x
     param_2 = param_3;
     break;
 case 0x7c: // |
     param_2 = param_2 | param_3;
 }
 return param_2;
 }

    We can reverse this functionality and implement it into our script later.

  4. We should try blocking the SIGALRM. However, this cannot be done using a debugger (GDB) like was possible in "Need For Speed" since we need the elevated permissions from SETUID to be able to cat the flag.txt file. The zardus/preeny project will not work here for the same reason, but it could be useful for future projects.

  5. We can open a session with the challenge file in which the SIGALRM is ignored with the following C program:

     #include <stdio.h>
 #include <stdlib.h>
 #include <signal.h>

 int main() {
     signal(SIGALRM, SIG_IGN);
     system("/problems/time-s-up--for-the-last-time-_5_b2df97b433878873b16cff47337769d6/times-up-one-last-time");
 }

    The above file runs the challenge using the absolute path on the shell server. Create a file called no_sigalrm.c in your home directory. Compile it with: gcc -g no_sigalrm.c -o no_sigalrm (output name is important since the script.py is hardcoded to use that name). Make sure to mark it as executable with chmod +x no_sigalrm.

    Above script as a file (calls the times-up-one-last-time in the present directory): no_sigalrm.c (compiled version: no_sigalrm)

  6. Let's write a script to solve the equation, now that we have bypassed the time restriction. Searching for "custom python operators" yields this hack for infix operators linked to from this blog and this StackOverflow answer.

  7. We actually only have two custom operators: return the left value and return the right value, there are just many names for these operators in the produced equation.

     L = Infix(lambda x,y: x)
 R = Infix(lambda x,y: y)

    We replace the operators in the program output with our new operators:

     challenge = challenge.replace("f", "|L|")
 challenge = challenge.replace("o", "|R|")
 challenge = challenge.replace("r", "|R|")
 challenge = challenge.replace("t", "|L|")
 challenge = challenge.replace("x", "|R|")

  8. The script.py only works in python2 since the infix operator hack only works properly in that version. Make sure to change the script location directory to your home folder. You should compile the no_sigalrm file on the shell server and place it in your home folder. Then, in script.py change the text <username> to your username.

  9. Run exploit: python2 script.py USER=<username> PASSWORD=<password>:

     [+] Connecting to 2019shell1.picoctf.com on port 22: Done
 [*] <username>@2019shell1.picoctf.com:
     Distro    Ubuntu 18.04
     OS:       linux
     Arch:     amd64
     Version:  4.15.0
     ASLR:     Enabled
 [+] Opening new channel: 'pwd': Done
 [+] Receiving all data: Done (14B)
 [*] Closed SSH channel with 2019shell1.picoctf.com
 [*] Working directory: '/tmp/tmp.Ss2j8QPOBM'
 [+] Opening new channel: 'ln -s /home/<username>/* .': Done
 [+] Receiving all data: Done (0B)
 [*] Closed SSH channel with 2019shell1.picoctf.com
 [+] Starting remote process '/home/<username>/no_sigalrm' on 2019shell1.picoctf.com: pid 1091939
 Answer: -2606491616
 [+] picoCTF{And now you can hack time! #0e9c1f05}

    Warning: The script might fail, but it has approximately a 3/4 success rate.

Flag

picoCTF{And now you can hack time! #0e9c1f05}

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