Tags: windows 

Rating:

**Description**

> The '90s called and wanted their crackme back. It's basically a walk in a park.

**Files provided**

- [`oldskull.exe`](https://github.com/EmpireCTF/empirectf/blob/master/writeups/2018-09-29-Teaser-Dragon-CTF/files/oldskull.exe)

**Solution** (by [Mem2019](https://github.com/Mem2019))

The program is written in classical win32 API, which is covered in the book "Windows Programming", and I will not detail this programming part.

The program asked us to input 4 16-bit hex number, and they will then be processed in this way:

```c
a1 = (char *)trans_input(::a1, 0x4C8Eu, inputs[0]);
if ( a1 )
{
v17 = (char *)trans_input(a1, 0x4C6Eu, inputs[1]);
if ( v17 )
{
v16 = (char *)trans_input(v17, 0x4C4Eu, inputs[2]);
if ( v16 )
{
v15 = trans_input(v16, 0x4C2Eu, inputs[3]);
if ( v15 )
{
//we need to go here!
}
}
}
}
```

The `trans_input` function, `0x004016E4`

```c
void *__cdecl trans_input(char *a1, size_t size, unsigned int a3)
{
unsigned __int16 input; // [esp+1Ch] [ebp-3Ch]
char hash[40]; // [esp+20h] [ebp-38h]
char *ret; // [esp+48h] [ebp-10h]
size_t i; // [esp+4Ch] [ebp-Ch]

input = a3;
ret = (char *)malloc(size);
memset(ret, 0, size);
for ( i = 0; i < size; ++i )
{
ret[i] = (a1[i] ^ input) - HIBYTE(input);
input *= 0x62F3;
}//decode the data using the key given
memset(hash, 0, sizeof(hash));
md5(ret, size - 32, hash);//found this is a md5 by debugging
//result will be putted as hex string
if ( !memcmp(hash, &ret[size - 32], 0x20u) )
return ret;//last 0x20 bytes must be md5 hashes of previous bytes
free(ret);
return 0;
}
```

Initially, I would like to bruteforce the md5. However, what we need to do is to test all `0x10000` possibilities, and print the value if the last `0x20` bytes are hex string. This is already enough to get the value.

The code is quite ugly, since this is a CTF instead of a software engineering design.

```c
#include <stdio.h>
char data[19616];
void getdata()
{
FILE* f = fopen("oldskull.exe", "rb");
fseek(f, 0x4020, 0);
fread(data,sizeof(data),1,f);
fclose(f);
}

char* trans_input(char *a1, size_t size, unsigned int a3)
{
unsigned short input; // [esp+1Ch] [ebp-3Ch]
char *ret; // [esp+48h] [ebp-10h]
size_t i; // [esp+4Ch] [ebp-Ch]

input = a3;
ret = (char *)malloc(size);
memset(ret, 0, size);
for ( i = 0; i < size; ++i )
{
ret[i] = (a1[i] ^ input) - (input >> 8);
input *= 0x62F3;
}
return ret;
}

int ismd5(char* buf)
{
for (int i = 0; i < 0x20; ++i)
{
char c = buf[i];
if (!(c >= '0' && c <= '9' || c >= 'a' && c <= 'f'))
{
return 0;
}
}
return 1;
}

int main(int argc, char const *argv[])
{
getdata();
char* ret;
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < 0x10000; ++i)
{
ret = trans_input(data, 0x4C8E, i);
if (ismd5(ret + 0x4C8E - 0x20))
{
printf("%x\n", i);
memcpy(data, ret, 0x4c8E);
}
free(ret);
}
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < 0x10000; ++i)
{
ret = trans_input(data, 0x4C8E - 0x20, i);
if (ismd5(ret + 0x4C8E - 0x20 * 2))
{
printf("%x\n", i);
memcpy(data, ret, 0x4c8E);
}
free(ret);
}
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < 0x10000; ++i)
{
ret = trans_input(data, 0x4C8E - 0x20 * 2, i);
if (ismd5(ret + 0x4C8E - 0x20 * 3))
{
printf("%x\n", i);
memcpy(data, ret, 0x4c8E);
}
free(ret);
}
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < 0x10000; ++i)
{
ret = trans_input(data, 0x4C8E - 0x20 * 3, i);
if (ismd5(ret + 0x4C8E - 0x20 * 4))
{
printf("%x\n", i);
memcpy(data, ret, 0x4c8E);
}
free(ret);
}
return 0;
}
```

After we obtain the 4 magic numbers, put them into the program, and we found that we can already enter into the branch we want.

Many windows APIs are involved, what they do is writing the result data obtained above into temporary directory, and execute it with the flag input as the first argument. Thus, find the executable in the temporary directory, open it with IDA.

```c
int __cdecl main(int argc, const char **argv, const char **envp)
{
const char *v4; // [esp+18h] [ebp-8h]
unsigned int i; // [esp+1Ch] [ebp-4h]

sub_402B90();
if ( argc != 2 )
return 1;
v4 = argv[1];
if ( strlen(argv[1]) != 20 )
return 2;
for ( i = 0; i <= 0x13; ++i )
{
if ( v4[i] != (byte_404008[i] ^ 0x8F) )
return 3;
}
return 0;
}
```

Easy xor decryption! we can get the flag easily.

`''.join((map(lambda x : chr(ord(x) ^ 0x8f), get_bytes(0x404008,20))))`

Original writeup (https://github.com/EmpireCTF/empirectf/blob/master/writeups/2018-09-29-Teaser-Dragon-CTF/README.md#176-re--brutal-oldskull).