So in continuing the theme of my previous post, which detailed the process of Installing Hacme Bank, this article will hopefully provide another easy to follow, step-by-step guide to installing and configuring the application.

Install Internet Information Services

Hacme Shipping installs as a Virtual Directory under Internet Information Services so our first order of business is to get IIS installed.

1. Place your Windows XP Pro CD into the drive.

2. Run the Add or Remove Programs option found in the Control Panel.

3. Select Add/Remove Windows Components from the left-hand side.

4. In the Windows Components Wizard highlight Internet Information Services (IIS) and click the Details button.

5. Put a check in the boxes next to: Common Files, Internet Information Services Snap-In, and World Wide Web Service.

6. Highlight World Wide Service and click Details, then uncheck Printers Virtual Directory and click Ok.

7. Click Ok again to close the IIS options window, and click Next to complete the install.

When the install completes, click Finish and exit out of the Control Panel.

MySQL

1. Download MySQL Community Server; the Windows Essentials version is fine for this project. (Version 5.1.38 at time of writing)

2. Launch the installer, and for 'Setup Type' choose Typical. When the installer reaches the "Wizard Completed" screen verify that the "Configure the MySQL Server now" box is checked and click finish.

3. Choose "Detailed Configuration" and leave all settings as their defaults on each of the screens until you reach the option screen for TCP/IP Networking and SQL mode. On this screen uncheck "Enable Strict Mode" and click next.

4. Continue installing with the default settings until you reach the "Windows Options" screen. On this screen put a check-mark in the "Include Bin directory in Windows PATH" option and click next.

5. On the "Security Options" screen verify that "Modify Security Settings" is checked and enter 53cr37 for the root password (or anything else that you'll remember for later in this install) then click next.

6. Finally press the execute button to perform the install and the click finish.

Hacme Shipping

1. If you haven't done so already, download Hacme Shipping from Foundstone, Inc website.

2. Launch the MSI installer and accept all the default settings until you reach the 'Database Setup' page. In the password box enter the MySQL root password that you chose during the MySQL install step and click 'Next'. Once the install finishes click 'Close' to exit out.

ColdFusion

1. Download ColdFusion 8 Developer Edition [English | Windows] (registration required) from Adobe's website (Version 8.01 at time of writing)

2. Run the installer and on the "Install Type" screen tick the checkbox for the "Developer Edition" option and click next.

3. Accept the default settings for the remaining configuration screens. Be sure to enter an Administrsator password that you'll remember!

4. When the installation is complete, click Done. This will launch an IE browser with the ColdFusion admin login page. Enter the password you chose during install and click login.

   Note: If a browser doesn't appear, you can access the admin page by manually going to:
   http://localhost/CFIDE/administrator.index.cfm

5. Configuration of the server will begin automatically, this takes a minute or two so be patient. When the setup is complete the page will refresh and an 'Ok' button will appear; click the 'Ok' button to continue configuring.

6. In the left hand window click on "Data Sources" found under the Data & Services section. On the "Add New Data Source" page enter "hacmeshipping" for DataSource Name and choose MySQL (4/5) from the Driver pulldown, then click 'Add'.

7. On the next screen, in the "Database" field enter "hacmeshipping", for 'Server' enter "127.0.0.1", and leave the port set to 3306. The user will be "root" and enter the same password you chose when installing MySQL. Now click the 'Submit' button.

8. You're now done installing and configuring the necessary components.

Testing Hackme Shipping

You should now be able to launch a browser and access the application at http://127.0.0.1/HacmeShipping_MG/index.cfm using 'admin' and 'password' for credentials. If everything is working as it should you'll be logged into the application and can begin crafting you application based attacks!

Also, be sure to read the Hacme Shipping User Guide that was installed with the application, you'll find a shortcut to it under the "Foundstone Free Tools" folder in the Start Menu. It provides a detailed description of each vulnerability, it's impact, and an example of how to exploit it. So don't read ahead too early or you'll ruin the fun of the discovery process!

Bonus! Remote Access to Hacme Shipping!

Ok, so this really isn't that great a bonus (like with Hacme Bank) since it doesn't appear that Hacme Shipping has any built-in restrictions for remote access to the application. So all we need to do is configure the Windows Firewall to allow HTTP traffic through.

1. Open the Windows Security Center located in the Control Panel and select Windows Firewall at the bottom of the panel.

2. Click on the Exceptions tab.

3. Click the Add Port button.

4. For the Name field enter "IIS" and "80" for the Port field, then click Ok and Ok to make the change. You can now exit out of the control panel as well.

Now open a browser on the host machine (or other machine on your network). And browse to the remote web instance: http://[IP Address of the VM Image]/HacmeShipping_MG/index.cfm/

Hack Fu!

In this write-up I'll walk you through the necessary steps for getting the application up and running on a Windows XP Professional VMWare image. I prefer this setup for a couple of reasons. First, if an unrecoverable error condition occurs (while hurling malicious packets at the application perhaps?) you can simply revert the Virtual Machine back to a known good state. Second, by positioning Hacme Back on an isolated machine I'm able to use my everyday penetration testing rig as the attack platform.

Take a Snapshot

I'm frequently reusing my XP Pro VM for exploit and vulnerability research, so VMWare's Snapshot functionality saves me from having to rebuild the OS image after every project. With that said, I'd suggest taking a "baseline" snapshot of your VM (or make a backup copy if you're using VMPlayer) before we begin.

Install Internet Information Services

Hacme Bank installs as a Virtual Directory under IIS, instead of being a standalone service like previous FoundStone applications, so step one is to get the web server installed.

1. Place your Windows XP Pro CD into the drive.

2. Run the Add or Remove Programs option found in the Control Panel.

3. Select Add/Remove Windows Components from the left-hand side.

4. In the Windows Components Wizard highlight Internet Information Services (IIS) and click the Details button.

5. Put a check in the boxes next to: Common Files, Internet Information Services Snap-In, and World Wide Web Service.

6. Highlight World Wide Service and click Details, then uncheck Printers Virtual Directory and click Ok.

7. Click Ok again to close the IIS options window, and click Next to complete the install.

When the install completes, click Finish and exit out of the Control Panel.

Next, register the .NET Framework with the IIS service we just installed by opening a command window and running:

c:\windows\microsoft.net\framework\v1.1.4322\aspnet_regiis -i

Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (MSDE 2000)

Download the MSDE 2000 Release A package from Microsoft's MSDE 2000 product page and run the executable. Accept the defaults on any prompts that appear and allow the unpackager to complete.

Open a command prompt and run the following command to install MSDE:

c:\MSDERelA\Setup SAPWD=HacmeBank SECURITYMODE=MIXED DISABLENETWORKPROTOCOLS=0

When the install completes, go ahead and start the service:

net start MSSQLSERVER

When it completes you can close the command window.

Install Hacme Bank

Download and unpack the install files from FoundStone's website

Install the website first by running the "Foundstone Hacme Bank Website Setup v2.0" executable. For the sake of simplicity accept all the default values during the install.

Next, install the WebService files by running the "Foundstone Hacme Bank WebService Setup v2.0" executable. Again, accept the default settings until your reach the Database Setup screen. Here, select Trusted Connection, click Next and complete the install.

Test Your Install

Open IE in the VM instance and browse to http://localhost/HacmeBank_v2_Website/

You might receive a warning about IE's Intranet Settings being disabled by default. Simply right-click on the Information Bar and select Enable Intranet Settings.

The Hacme Bank homepage should load and you can test the back-end system by logging into the site using the user name jv, and password jv789. If everything is working correctly you will be presented with a welcome screen.

Bonus! Remote Access to Hacme Bank!

First we need to modify the operating system's firewall to allow traffic to port 80.

1. Open the Windows Security Center located in the Control Panel and select Windows Firewall at the bottom of the panel.

2. Click on the Exceptions tab.

3. Click the Add Port button.

4. For the Name field enter "IIS" and "80" for the Port field, then click Ok and Ok to make the change. You can now exit out of the control panel as well.

Now open a browser on the host machine (or other machine on your network). And browse to the remote web instance: http://[IP Address of the VM Image]/HacmeBank_v2_Website/

You'll be presented with a message informing you that the application, by default, will only accept requests from the local machine. This is by design due to the serious flaws that have been designed into Hacme Bank. Exposing the faux website to the internet would place the entire host at risk, so take extra care to keep it internal facing only.

Open the website's config file, C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\HacmeBank_v2_Website\web.config in notepad and look for the <httpModules> section. (You should find it at the beginning of the config file.)

To activate remote access we need to disable the loading of the HttpModule_onlyAllowLocalAccess module. Simply comment it out by wrapping the specific line in <!-- ... --> tags as shown below:

...
<!--
<add name ="HttpModule_onlyAllowLocalAccess" type="HacmeBank_v2_Website.httpModules.HttpModule_onlyAllowLocalAccess,HacmeBank_v2_Website"/>
-->
...

Now make the same configuration change to the Web Service instance:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <system.web>
      <httpModules>
<!--     
          <add name ="HttpModule_onlyAllowLocalAccess" type="HacmeBank_v2_Website.httpModules.HttpModule_onlyAllowLocalAccess,HacmeBank_v2_WS"/>
-->

Now hit reload on your host's browser and instead of the default "Local access only" message, the website will be fully accessible.

Happy Hacking!

As outlined in my previous Customized Markdown Tags article the first step is to choose the Markdown syntax we want to represent the new style block. Once again I took the non-scientific approach and chose ~^ simply because the upward caret seemed like a fitting choice for "update".

For ease of implementation I'll be editing the code from my previous article so that it will support the "Update" tag in addition to the "Note" and "Warning" tags. In addition, I'll be renaming my custom subroutine to a more generic name, making any future additions a bit easier.

So my previous subroutine named _DoNotesAndWarnings will be renamed to _DoCustomizedBlocks.

sub _DoCustomizedBlocks {
    my $text = shift;
    my $style = "";

    $text =~ s{
            [^`]~([\!\?\^])      # $1 = style class
            (.+?)           # $2 = Block text
            ~[\!\?\^]         # closing syntax
        }{
            if($1 eq '!') {
                $style = "Warning";
            } elsif ($1 eq '?') {
                $style = "Note";
            } elsif ($1 eq '^') {
                $style = "Update";
            }

            "<div class=\"$style\">" .  _RunSpanGamut("<b>$style:</b> \n" . $2)  .  "</div>\n\n";
        }egsx;

    return $text;
}

Then the previous call to _DoNotesAndWarnings() in the _RunBlockGamut() subroutine will also need to be updated to reflect the name change. (The additional call to HashHTMLBlocks() that was added in the previous article will remain.)

$text = _HashHTMLBlocks($text);

$text = _DoCustomizedBlocks($text);
$text = _HashHTMLBlocks($text);

$text = _FormParagraphs($text);

return $text;
}

The last step is to add the new tag's style to the Cascading Style Sheet:

.Update {
    width: 90%;
    margin-left: 5%;
    padding: .2em .3em;
    background:#FFFFCC;
    color: #000000;
    border:solid 1px #DEDEDE;
    font-size: 100%;
}

Finally, to test the new tag use the newly defined syntax in an entry:

~^ This is an Update Block ~^

Which produces:

Enjoy your new custom Markdown tags!

The brilliance of Markdown comes from it's powerful translations, combined with it's utter ease of use. Granted, it's not your typical WYSIWYG and did pose a slight comfort curve (the time and effort it takes to adjust to a new way of editing; for me at least!), but after writing only three articles with it I'm hooked!

#Heading One

Is reformatted when the entry is published, to:

<H1>Heading One</H1>

Brilliant! So it didn't take long before I had to see if Markdown could be leveraged to handle custom syntax for my own defined style blocks. A quick review of the Markdown plugin code confirmed my hopes and in less than an hour I had two working custom Markdown tags.

The tags I added were inspired by the "Note" and "Warning" text blocks which are popular on many Wiki sites. They're great for drawing the readers attention to necessary information amidst the rest of an article's text.

The first step was to choose the Markdown syntax I wanted to represent each style block. Obviously, I needed something that would work with the plugin's default syntax, but I also wanted something easy to remember. I ultimately chose ~! for the Warning style and ~? for the Note style. I really didn't have a scientific process for determining my choices (and they may change if I find conflicts in the future) but in my mind an exclamation point certainly relates to a warning, as a question mark denotes a thought or note.

Implementing the two new custom tags only required the modification of two files; Markdown.pl and screen.css.

First, I created a new subroutine in Markdown.pl called _DoNotesAndWarnings, which will handle the conversion of my custom syntax:

sub _DoNotesAndWarnings {
    my $text = shift;

    $text =~ s{
            \n~([\!\?])      # $1 = style class
            (.+?)           # $2 = Block text
            ~[\!\?]         # closing syntax
        }{
            my $style = ($1 eq '!') ? "Warning" : "Note";
            "<div class=\"$style\">" .  _RunSpanGamut("<b>$style:</b> \n" . $2)  .  "</div>\n\n";
        }egsx;

    return $text;
}

Next, I modified the _RunBlockGamut() subroutine to add a call to my new subroutine and I also added a second call to _HashHTMLBlocks(). This is so <p> tags aren't wrapped around my <div> blocks.

$text = _HashHTMLBlocks($text);

$text = _DoNotesAndWarnings($text);
$text = _HashHTMLBlocks($text);

$text = _FormParagraphs($text);

return $text;
}

The last step is to add the style definitions to the Cascading Style Sheet:

.Warning {
    width: 90%;
    margin-left: 5%;
    padding: .2em .3em;
    background: #F7CBCA;
    color: #000000;
    border: solid 1px #CC0000;
    font-size: 100%;
}

.Note {
    width: 90%;
    margin-left: 5%;
    padding: .2em .3em;
    background: #C9FFCA;
    color: #000000;
    border: solid 1px #349534;
    font-size: 100%;
}

Now to test the new custom Markdown tags I use the defined syntax in an entry:

~? This is a Note Block ~?

~! This is a Warning Block ~!

Which produces:

and...

However, those are just simple single line examples but multi-line input is handled just as well so we can do things like this:

~? This is a multi-line example.
<br/><br/>
`with an embedded code block` ~?

Will produce:

So there you have it! My Note and Warning custom Markdown tags are just two simple examples that show the flexibility of the Markdown plugin. Kudos to John Gruber and his development team!

The directions which follow apply to my dual boot MacBook Pro, your mileage may vary...

1. Boot from the Leopard DVD and after choosing a language you'll be presented with the Mac OS X Installer welcome screen. We're going to ignore the installer for a moment while we set up the correct disk partitions.

   Note: Jump to step 2 if partitioning has already been done and you're simply reinstalling OS's

   Run the Disk Utility found under the Utilities->Disk Utility toolbar menu. Highlight the main drive (149.1 GB Fujitsu) and click on the Partition tab. Use the Volume Scheme section to configure the partition layout you'd like to create. I prefer to make a 125GB Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and name it "Leopard", and leave the remaining as "Free Space".

   After applying the changes you can exit the Disk Utility.

2. Click continue on the Mac OS X Installer welcome screen, then agree on the Software License pop-up, and when prompted for the install destination choose the MacBook's main drive (it most likely has a exclamation warning over it). Under options select the "Erase and Install" option with the default file system (Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Then click "Ok" followed by "Continue".

3. At the "Install Summary" screen click "Customize" and uncheck everything except for "Essential System Software" and "X11" and click the "Install" button.

   Update: I no longer use the included X11 package and instead install Xquartz. More info can be found in my Essential Software for OS X article.

4. After the install process, the computer will reboot. Complete the install process by following the prompts for Region, Keyboard settings, .Mac and Apple account information, and finally, account creation.

5. Now run the Software Update utility and restart the laptop.

6. Repeat step 5 as needed.

7. Install iLife '08 from recovery DVDs that were included with the MBP via the "Install Bundled Software Only" component (iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto; uncheck everything else)

8. Now run the Software Update utility until the OS is fully updated.

Congratulations! Your OS X base system is now installed and updated.

Now it's time to configure some System Preferences for, in my opinion, improving usability. Below are the most common ones I tweak but you may prefer the default settings; which I assume is why they call them Preferences...

1. Rename the laptop By default the OS name the laptop "Username's MacBook Pro" which is a bit wordy when you're working in a terminal window with the standard shell prompt.

   You can change this under the System Preferences->Sharing tab.

2. Enable Secondary Clicks I love the feature of placing two fingers on the trackpad and clicking the trackpad button to activate a Secondary Click (aka Right Click).

   You enable this by putting a check in the "Enable Secondary Clicks" box on the System Preferences->Keyboard + Mouse->Trackpad tab.

3. Shutoff Wireless Devices For the power saving benefit, as well as the extra security, I leave the wireless devices disabled until actually needed.

   The AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radio can both be disabled through their corresponding icons in the OS X toolbar.

4. Other minor tweaks I usually do are related to visuals, like changing the desktop image, resizing and removing unnecessary icons from the dock.

Now its time to install the all important applications; check out my Essential Software for OS X article for a list of my favorite apps.

Part Two: The Kubuntu Half

Due to the recent popularity of Linux MacBook Pro's, I've created a separate article dedicated to installing Kubuntu on a Macbook Pro.