A Discussion with the creator of the Social Engineers Toolkit

So last night we hosted an awesome session with Dave “Rel1K” Kennedy and many who had questions. What follows is the transcripts for that conversation.

Enjoy and keep checking in because we will be hosting more sessions like this.

loganWHD: so tell us the story of how SET was created
ReL1K: Well, long story short when loganWHD came to me and told me about social-engineering.org and what he was going to do, I thought it was a great idea…wanted to contribute where I could..
ReL1K: Thought of a way to help augment social-engineering and client-side attacks in a way that 1. would take down the internet (just kidding), and 2. be usable by people that really need it..
ReL1K: To be perfectly honest when I do social-engineer attacks it takes FOREVER to setup different attack vectors
ReL1K: 20+ hours right?
ReL1K: anywhere from coding the website
ReL1K: to getting the payload delivering properly
ReL1K: to setting up email phishing
ReL1K: just takes a long time, things don’t work right
ReL1K: so wrote SET to automate it, take the crummy parts out of a social-engineering attack and make it more fun
ReL1K: plus while drinking it led to a lot of fun times
Xpl0it: πŸ™‚
loganWHD: love it
loganWHD: and
loganWHD: it has been one of the heavy hitters of the site
ReL1K: so that was it…loganWHD was my inspiration i actually had some ascii pr0n in the image of chris, but that was cut out in the introductions of the SET tool in 0.1alpha…
loganWHD: UGH
loganWHD: @clean
SE_Bot: loganWHD: “clean” is (#1) we try to keep it clean, fun and all about SOCIAL ENGINEERING, or (#2) This is a family-friendly channel and discussions here reflect on our business. Please use appropriate language and discussion topics.
ReL1K: I SAID pr0n!!!
loganWHD: ugh
Xpl0it: geezz…
Xpl0it: not a good thought
ReL1K: on a serious note, it was a blast writing….
loganWHD: so on to better things
ReL1K: and was a blast that loganWHD tested it out for me
loganWHD: it was awesome
ReL1K: without him couldn’t have written it…or had it working
loganWHD: still is
loganWHD: sometimes i pwn my sons computer just for fun
loganWHD: “hey boy open this pdf”
ReL1K: hehe
Xpl0it: lol
loganWHD: shells are fun
ReL1K: nothing like getting a meterpreter shell on your sons computer..
ReL1K: i tried that but my sons 16 months old
ReL1K: doesn’t understand yet..
davehardy20: I pwn ed my managers pc with SET
Xpl0it: hehehe
loganWHD: HAHAH
loganWHD: nice
loganWHD: so now
loganWHD: questions
ReL1K: haha
loganWHD: there were a few sent in or discussed about SET
ReL1K: roger
ffxp: I have a quick one after rAWjAW
davehardy20: my manager is the IT Manager, he really should know better
davehardy20: so I wanna know everything about SET cause its gonna change the way things are done around my office
ReL1K: absolutely
ReL1K: fire away
ffxp wondering why I’m trying to be polite
ffxp: πŸ™‚
ReL1K: ffxp you can go too πŸ™‚
davehardy20: I was wondering if we can make custom websites for the java app attack part of SET?
ffxp: for me it’s kind of rare to have the same box initiating the emails or whatever
rAWjAW: oh ReL1K… I saw in the newsletter you are talking about the ARP / inject bad things stuff… When you have them go to your site, are you spoofing the DNS resolution, or will it say “172.16.3.99” in the browser… And also, with the wget, aren’t you in a race condition with the computer (even though you are arping it) to get the page and add the payload?
ffxp: as the box getting the shells or doing anyalitics
rAWjAW: (did that all go through)?
ffxp: so I normally have a php box internal or external to handle the metrics / reptoring stuff
ffxp: any thoughts about hooking into “collector” scripts or frameworks like beef?
STS301: don’t we have meeting now?
ReL1K: alright to answer rAwjAW first: right now its only doing it based off of IP, haven’t thought about the DNS route but is absolutely plausible, will add to the TODO list, I like the idea. The second question, we can delay the client as long as we want before receiving connections to the webserver, timeouts are always a worry but shouldn’t be a huge issue, there will be two implementations of…
ReL1K: …the wget functionality, one when they are browsing websites, and another to stage ahead of time
loganWHD: i love that idea
loganWHD: wget
ReL1K: to rip a sites front level page takes roughly 4-6 seconds depending on bandwidth, should be easy to rip and pop the site up without a real notice of performance toward the website
loganWHD: made me giddy
ReL1K: and based on python, the basehttpserver is highly optimized and multi-threaded, shouldn’t notice to much lag rendering
loganWHD: pop a box
rAWjAW: sounds good πŸ™‚
ReL1K: to answer ffxps: totally understand, do you want me to add a field to just create a listener automatically for you on a seperate machine? like menu 1-4 = X menu 5 = setup a metasploit listener?
ReL1K: because currently you can setup a remote host automatically through the payloads
ffxp: not sure what the best way is, just wanted to get an idea where your head was at regarding this
ReL1K: davehard20: the new functionality with the wget should absolve that, i can add an option to point to a folder that can be imported to a custom website, thats super easy
ReL1K: ffxp: typically if your using two separate machines, one for emails the other for a listener, you can create the payload, shoot out the emails, but making sure the remote host is set for your other server, SET gives you the option to not create a listener
davehardy20: that sounds like great solution add a pointer
ffxp: ok
ReL1K: ffxp: can easily add in a method to just create a listener
ReL1K: give me 3 minutes
ffxp: its mainly that I get analytics rather than pop shells
ffxp: πŸ™‚
ffxp: or rather πŸ™
Xpl0it: lol
Xpl0it: get your smiley faces straight
Xpl0it: πŸ˜‰
ffxp: maybe I can add in some php/py/asp code to listen for some standard analytic payloads
ffxp: that would go along with the kit
ffxp: brb…got to put kids to bed
ffxp: errr…pwn them via SET
ReL1K: there we go
ReL1K: just added a number 5 on SET for create a payload and listener
ReL1K: you can use that to create the payload you want, and just setup the listener on the other machine
ReL1K: just comitted the changes
ReL1K: should make it a little bit easier at least
ReL1K: ffxp, i can add a simple addition
loganWHD updates
loganWHD: SWEEET
ReL1K: use the windows/upexec/reverse_tcp
ReL1K: so you can specify your own executable
ReL1K: could be something trivial
ReL1K: for statistics
ReL1K: instead of a shell
ffxp: mmmm
ReL1K: what do you use it for?
ffxp: to show how easy users can be tricked …then report on the depth of their stupidity
ffxp: thats the analytics part
ffxp: and sometimes report on how ineffective end point controls can be
Xpl0it: nice
ReL1K: are you looking for more of like a report of how many people connected?
ReL1K: or something thats not harmful
ReL1K: at all
ffxp: exactly the kind of stuff I’m doing now with php
ffxp: right
ffxp: I’m trying to find the code now
ffxp: stupid simple
ReL1K: how about
ffxp: just writes to a file
ReL1K: this is for the email attack only right?
ffxp: yes
ReL1K: you don’t want it to connect back to you?
ffxp: correct
ReL1K: just create a file?
ReL1K: oh
ReL1K: SUPER easy
davehardy20: I’d be interested in a report on how many people connected
ffxp: gather info
ReL1K: that would be windows/exec
davehardy20: this would prove how thick some users are
ReL1K: execute ipconfig :: “moo.txt & net view :: moo.txt & gpresult :: moo.txt & net user :: moo.txt”
rAWjAW: Another question… Right now it is just adobe pdf files, are there plans for other as well? (or a way to select one)
ffxp: cool
ReL1K: that work?
ReL1K: rAWjAW: plans for adding word and excel right now, what other formats were you interested in?
ffxp: well..I’ just use javascript/java to fingerprint the browser
rAWjAW: word and excel were the ones i was thinking of
ffxp: then track if they click links
ffxp: then see if they download a non-weaponized exe/pdf/doc
Xpl0it: ReL1K: what about adding PowerPoint?
ffxp: thats where the windows/exec thing would be cool
ReL1K: Xpl0it: shouldn’t be to much harder..
Xpl0it: k
ReL1K: ffxp: i gotchya
ReL1K: i haven’t looked at ppt yet
Xpl0it: k
Xpl0it: just thinking about what stuff people usually e-mail
ffxp: thx man
ReL1K: no problemo
ReL1K: will add
ReL1K: anything else guys?
ReL1K: betting ill have the wget portions done in 2 weeks
loganWHD: ReL1K, thank you
ReL1K: dns spoofing is easy
ReL1K: probably tomorrow
loganWHD: thank you making the tool
loganWHD: and thank you for your time tonight
ReL1K: hehe tis fun
Xpl0it: yeah great GREAT stuff
ReL1K: love this stuff πŸ˜‰
_Elwood_: looking forward to that wget stuff. Great stuff!
rAWjAW: yes yes, thank you very much for SET ReL1K
rAWjAW: oh
ReL1K: _Elwood_ i love you buddy!
ReL1K: hehe thanks rAWjAW πŸ™‚
loganWHD: and from the downloads on the site… i know alot fo ppl thank you
loganWHD: haha
Xpl0it: lol
rAWjAW: I know these aren’t typically e-mailed but what about an exe embedded in a .chm file
rAWjAW: I have a writeup somewhere on how to do it
ReL1K: send it away, can always add the option
rAWjAW: Sure thing
ReL1K: alright guys much appreciated
loganWHD: l8r bro
ReL1K: “<3” loganwhd
Image
https://unsplash.com/@carlevarino