ThreatBox – A Standard And Controlled Linux Based Attack Platform

November 23, 2021

ThreatBox is a standard and controlled Linux based attack platform. I’ve used a version of this for years. It started as a collection of scripts, lived as a rolling virtual machine, existed as code to build a Linux ISO, and has now been converted to a set of ansible playbooks. Why Ansible? Why not? This seemed to be the next natural evolution to the configuration of standard attack platforms.

This project uses ansible playbooks and roles to perform post deployment configuration on a linux target (Tested on Ubuntu 18.04).

The project is designed to be used as a starter process in creating, managing, and using a standard attack platform for red teaming or penetration testing.

Detail on the concept of a Standard Attack Platform can be found it the book Red Team Development and Operations – A practical guide, written by Joe Vest and James Tubberville.

Features

Standard tools defined as ansible roles
Customizations designed to make security testing easier
Variable list to add or remove git repositories, OS packages, or python modules. (threatbox.yml)
Version tracking of the deployed instance version and the deploy tool version. This is helpful it meeting compliance rules and can help minimize fear by actively tracking all tools.
- Threatbox version created at deployment and displayed in desktop wallpaper
- Deployed software tracked in ~/Desktop/readme
SSH port auto-switching. The deployment starts on port 22, but reconfigures the target system to the desired SSH port using the ansible_port variable in threatbox.yml
Download and compile several .net toolkits (i.e. SeatBelt.exe from Ghostpack https://github.com/GhostPack/Seatbelt)
Most python projects installed using pipenv. Use pipenv shell in the project directory to access. See https://realpython.com/pipenv-guide/ for pipenv usage guidance

Project Files

The following list highlights key components of this project.

File/Directory	Description	Usage
host	Ansible hosts file	Update with IP addresses of target ansible systems
group_vars/threatbox.yml	common variables	variable used for the project. update as needed.
threatbox_playbox.yml	Primary ansible playbook	Update as need to add additional roles or features
roles/common	Common OS platform configuration	Setup common OS settings (i.e set version in background or build)
roles/.	other specific roles to configure or deploy tools	add or modify roles in roles/

Quickstart

Provision

Provision one or more targets.

Note: This project was tested on Ubuntu 18.04 deployed in Digitalocean

Configuration

Copy hosts.sample to hosts
Edit hosts with the IP(s) of your target systems
Copy group_varsthreatbox.yml.sample to group_varsthreatbox.yml
Edit group_varsthreatbox.yml with the updated variables you would like to use
- Don’t forget to update SSH key with a key that has access to the remote target

Ansible commands

# OSX issue https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/32499
if [[ "$(uname)" == "Darwin" ]]
then
    export OBJC_DISABLE_INITIALIZE_FORK_SAFETY=yes;
fi

# Ansible Logging
rm ./ansible.log
export ANSIBLE_LOG_PATH="ansible.log"

# Ansible Debugging
export ANSIBLE_DEBUG=False

# Execute playbook
ansible-playbook -e ansible_python_interpreter=/usr/bin/python3 -i hosts threatbox_playbook.yml

Note: Consider using Mitogen for Ansible to gain a significant performance boost. https://mitogen.networkgenomics.com/ansible_detailed.html

Tested with this ansible.cfg

[defaults]
host_key_checking = False
pipelining = True
forks = 100
timeout = 600
stdout_callback = yaml
bin_ansible_callbacks = True
callback_whitelist = profile_roles, profile_tasks, timer

#mitogen
strategy_plugins = ~/Documents/mitogen-0.2.9/ansible_mitogen/plugins/strategy
strategy = mitogen_linear

Remotely Access the system

Console access with SSH

Note: SSH may be set to a non-standard port during setup. This value is set in the group_vars/threatbox.yml files

threatboxip=10.10.10.10
sshport=52222
ssh -p $sshport -i ~/.ssh/threatbox_id_rsa root@$threatboxip

GUI Access with VNC over SSH

Note: VNC is setup but not allowed over the network. You must use an SSH tunnel to access.

threatboxip=10.10.10.10
sshport=52222
ssh -p $sshport -i ~/.ssh/threatbox_id_rsa -L 5901:localhost:5901 root@$threatboxip

Notes on the project

This project uses ansbile roles. These roles may not exactly follow the ansible style. They were designed to be used as part of this project and use a single ‘variable’ file to control the project. The roles can easily be used in other project with minor tweaks.

Features

ThreatBox Custom Commands