Penetration Testing mailing list archives

Re: [PEN-TEST] SQL 6.5 & 7.0 passwords in the registry (NT 4.0)


From: "Aaron C. Newman" <aaron () NEWMAN-FAMILY COM>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 17:39:43 -0500

Yes, there is clearly two issues here - passwords stored on a client through
Enterprise Manager, which is what Pentester is referring to, are stored in
clear text (6.5) or with a bad encryption algorithm (7.0).

The issue you raise is cracking passwords stored in the database tables on
the server. Encryption of these passwords was added after version 4.2. If
you'd like to crack sql server passwords there are several ways out there to
accomplish this. Go to Chip Andrew's website, www.sqlsecurity.com, click on
downloads and then audit.sql. ISS also has a free prototype called SQL
Cracker written by Jon Larimer that cracks 6.x passwords - you can download
it from http://xforce.iss.net/protoworx/index.php.



-----Original Message-----
From: Penetration Testers [mailto:PEN-TEST () SECURITYFOCUS COM]On Behalf
Of Attonbitus Deus
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 12:51 AM
To: PEN-TEST () SECURITYFOCUS COM
Subject: Re: [PEN-TEST] SQL 6.5 & 7.0 passwords in the registry (NT 4.0)


<snip>

Now, this was for the passwords stored
in sysxlogins that linked to the users in sysusers- I think this 'stored in
the clear' business was regarding EnterpriseManager as Todd pointed out in
his reply.

Does anyone have any more info on this?  I have penetrated many SQL boxes
and retrieved the master db, but have never been able to crack the passwords
in sysxlogins to get further down range.  I think that if it really were
simple, there would be crackers out there for it.

Additionally, if the 6.5 system users and pwds really are in the clear, why
would Pentester be asking us for the crypto?


----- Original Message -----
From: "Todd Sabin" <tas () webspan net>
To: "Penetration Testers" <PEN-TEST () SECURITYFOCUS COM>
Cc: "Attonbitus Deus" <Thor () HAMMEROFGOD COM>
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2001 8:54 PM
Subject: Re: [PEN-TEST] SQL 6.5 & 7.0 passwords in the registry (NT 4.0)


Attonbitus Deus <Thor () HAMMEROFGOD COM> writes:

Todd Sabin discovered this and reported on it over 3 years ago... For
SQL
6.5, the username is clear, and the password is hashed via PKZip's
crypto
using a fixed key.  This should be in the Bugtraq archives.

7.0 uses a different hash, and though dbsecure allows you to brute it
via
dictionary, I have not found a tool that cracks SQL 7.0 sa password when
mixed mode is used.


Actually, there were two separate issues, one of which was mine.

What I found was that when you install SQL Server 6.5, it creates an
NT account (not a sql one) named SQLExecutiveCmdExec or something like
that, and stores the password in an Everyone:Read part of the
registry, encrypted with PKZip's encryption with a fixed key.  Since
you normally need credentials to read the registry in the first place,
it didn't get you all that much, really.  MS seems to have fixed this
in later versions, but I haven't looked at it too deeply.

At around the same time, someone else (don't remember, sorry) reported
that SQL Enterprise Manager stored (under the SQLEW key) the passwords
to SQL accounts that you used to register servers.  In that case, the
passwords were stored plaintext, although it was in the midst of a
blob of REG_BINARY data, so you had to look for it.  Depending on
configuration, it would put them either under HKCU or HKLM.

Haven't seen the particular thing the original poster was asking
about, though it looks like a similar problem.


Todd


Current thread: