Check to see if files such as the .bash_history file are readable and contain any interesting commands, look for configuration files, and check to see if we can obtain copies of a user's SSH keys
User's Home Directory Contents
ls -la /home/stacey.jenkins/
total 32
drwxr-xr-x 3 stacey.jenkins stacey.jenkins 4096 Aug 30 23:37 .
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 4096 Aug 30 23:33 ..
-rw------- 1 stacey.jenkins stacey.jenkins 41 Aug 30 23:35 .bash_history
-rw-r--r-- 1 stacey.jenkins stacey.jenkins 220 Sep 1 2015 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 stacey.jenkins stacey.jenkins 3771 Sep 1 2015 .bashrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 stacey.jenkins stacey.jenkins 97 Aug 30 23:37 config.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 stacey.jenkins stacey.jenkins 655 May 16 2017 .profile
drwx------ 2 stacey.jenkins stacey.jenkins 4096 Aug 30 23:35 .ssh
Check the ARP cache to see what other hosts are being accessed and cross-reference these against any useable SSH private keys.
SSH Directory Contents
ls -l ~/.ssh
total 8
-rw------- 1 mrb3n mrb3n 1679 Aug 30 23:37 id_rsa
-rw-r--r-- 1 mrb3n mrb3n 393 Aug 30 23:37 id_rsa.pub
Bash History
history
1 id
2 cd /home/cliff.moore
3 exit
4 touch backup.sh
5 tail /var/log/apache2/error.log
6 ssh ec2-user@dmz02.inlanefreight.local
7 history
Sudo
It is not uncommon to gain access as a user with full sudo privileges, meaning they can run any command as root. Issuing a simple sudo su command will immediately give you a root session.
sudo -l
Matching Defaults entries for sysadm on NIX02:
env_reset, mail_badpass, secure_path=/usr/local/sbin\:/usr/local/bin\:/usr/sbin\:/usr/bin\:/sbin\:/bin\:/snap/bin
User sysadm may run the following commands on NIX02:
(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/tcpdump
Passwd
Occasionally, you will see password hashes directly in the /etc/passwd file
If we find ourselves with write access to a users/.ssh/ directory, we can place our public key in the user's ssh directory at /home/user/.ssh/authorized_keys.
ssh-keygen -f key
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): *******
Enter same passphrase again: *******
Your identification has been saved in key
Your public key has been saved in key.pub
The key fingerprint is:
SHA256:...SNIP... user@parrot
The key's randomart image is:
+---[RSA 3072]----+
| ..o.++.+ |
...SNIP...
| . ..oo+. |
+----[SHA256]-----+
Let us copy key.pub, then on the remote machine, we will add it into /root/.ssh/authorized_keys:
