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Pkzip encryption random seed attack
8th Feb 2003 [SBWID-5978]
COMMAND

	Pkzip encryption random seed attack

SYSTEMS AFFECTED

	All zip encryption dependant on IBDL32.dll

PROBLEM

	In Mike  Stevens  -  [mikestevens@softhome.net]  and  Elisa  Flanders  -
	[eflanders@springfield.com] whitepaper
	
	
	 Introduction
	 ------------
	
	The ZIP format is  one  of  the  most  widely  used  compresion/archival
	programs on computers systems, its use is even more extended on  Windows
	plataform, with WinZIP program.
	
	
	
	 Known Attacks
	 -------------
	
	The PKZIP encryption scheme have been proved to be  weak  in  a  lot  of
	papers that are listed at the end of this paper. We found an  other  way
	to attack the encryption scheme using reversing  enginiering  in  WinZIP
	IBDL32.dll.
	
	A known problem is to get valid plain text in  order  to  do  an  attack
	using the "know plain text technic" [1]. Mikel Stay  published  at  2001
	"ZIP Attack with Reduced Known-Plaintext" [2], that  improved  the  firt
	attack, but the problem to get plaintext stil existed.
	
	Getting plaintext is so dificult because  plaintext  is  on  compression
	form and a minimum change on data would represent  a  great  alteration,
	so if we didn't know a  full  file  content  included  on  zip  file  we
	couldn't do anything. We will discuse if deflating system  is  used  the
	know plaintext attack, turns to be fearly easy.
	
	
	
	 The encrytion scheme
	 --------------------
	
	        Status change functions:
	
	void update_keys(char p) {
	        key0=crc32(key0, p);
	        key1=key1 + (key0 & 0xff);
	        key1=key1 * 134775813 + 1;
	        key2=crc32(key2, key1>>24);
	}
	
	char decrypt_byte(char b) {
	        unsigned short tmp;
	        tmp=key2 | 2;
	        return(tmp * (tmp^1)>>8);
	}
	
	        To inizializate the keys:
	
	..
	        key0=305419896;
	        key1=591751049;
	        key2=878082192;
	
	        for(i=0 ; i<strlen(pass) ; i++) {
	                update_keys(pass[i]);
	        }
	..
	
	        To code a byte of data:
	
	..
	        tmp=byte^decrypt_byte(byte);
	        update_keys(tmp);
	..
	
	Besides ,12 random bytes are prepended to the compressed data  in  order
	to make plaintext attack more dificult. This bytes  are  very  important
	to initializate the state of the stream code. Because  if  we  know  the
	state of the stream code on any time we can reverse until we get to  the
	beginning.
	
	
	
	 The attack
	 ----------
	
	Most ZIP coders use rand function to generate this 12 random bytes,  but
	other zippers use own function, this is the case of WinZIP.
	
	Attacking this encryption scheme using this 12  prepended  random  bytes
	is not a new idea , [2] describes this kind of attack but a  minimum  of
	5 files in a zip are needed in order to succeed.
	
	If we reverse engineering WinZIP rand(m generation  code,  we  find  the
	following code.
	
	46c5a0     push    ebp
	46c5a1     mov     ebp, esp
	46c5a3     mov     eax, [IBDL32.dll:Seed]
	46c5a8     mov     edx, eax
	46c5aa     add     edx, edx
	46c5ac     add     edx, eax
	46c5ae     shl     edx, 2
	46c5b1     add     edx, eax
	46c5b3     mov     ecx, edx
	46c5b5     shl     ecx, 4
	46c5b8     add     ecx, eax
	46c5ba     mov     edx, ecx
	46c5bc     shl     edx, 8
	46c5bf     sub     edx, eax
	46c5c1     shl     edx, 2
	46c5c4     lea     ecx, [eax+edx]
	46c5c7     mov     [IBDL32.dll:Seed], ecx
	46c5cd     mov     eax, [IBDL32.dll:Seed]
	46c5c2     sar     eax, 10h
	46c5c5     mov     ecx, eax
	46c5c7     and     ch, 7fh
	46c5ca     movzx   edx, cx
	46c5cd     mov     eax, edx
	46c5cf     ret
	
	It seems to be an ofuscated code, but if we  analize  this  we  can  see
	that C code may be like.
	
	        unsigned short rand()
	        {
	                seed=0x343fD * seed;
	                return ((seed >> 16)&0x7fff);
	        }
	
	        A normal rand implementation looks like:
	
	        unsigned short rand()
	        {
	                seed=0x343fD * seed + 0x269ec3;
	                return ((seed >> 16)&0x7fff);
	        }
	
	Initialy seems that the  person  who  wrote  this  code  forgot  to  add
	0x269ec3 to seed, but this can leed to a security problem,  because  the
	posible secuences are reduced from 2^(12*8) to 2^(3*8). We will  discuss
	the concrete mathematical apects of rand on a future paper, now we  will
	show how to crack zip file using this miss.
	
	Reducing the secuences makes more easy to do  a  bruteforce  attack  and
	then gess the state of the stream  coder  (key0,  key1,  key2).  We  can
	return to initial state using this known formules  form  pkcrack  source
	code (stage2 line 175):
	
	    /* The equation from section 3.3 is used twice here:
	     * (1) key1_{n-1} + LSB(key0_n) = rhs = (key1_n - 1) * INVCONST
	     * and
	     * (2) key1_{n-2} + LSB(key0_{n-1}) = (key1_{n-1} - 1) * INVCONST
	     *
	     * At this point we know key1_n, MSB(key1_{n-1}) and MSB(key1_{n-2}).
	     *
	     * From (2) follows
	     * MSB(key1_{n-2}) = MSB((key1_{n-1} - 1) * INVCONST - LSB(key0_{n-1}))
	     * Inserting (1) yields
	     * MSB(key1_{n-2}) = MSB((rhs - 1)*INVCONST -
	     *                       LSB(key0_n)*INVCONST - LSB(key0_{n-1}))
	     * which means that either
	     * (a) MSB(key1_{n-2}) = MSB((rhs - 1)*INVCONST) -
	     *                       MSB(LSB(key0_n)*INVCONST - LSB(key0_{n-1}))
	     * or
	     * (b) MSB(key1_{n-2}) = MSB((rhs - 1)*INVCONST) -
	     *                       MSB(LSB(key0_n)*INVCONST - LSB(key0_{n-1})) - 1
	     *
	     * It can easily be verified that for any two bytes b1, b2:
	     * MSB( b1*INVCONST + b2 ) = MSB( b1*INVCONST )
	     * (simple exhaustive test on 2^16 combinations)
	     *
	     * We have computed diff = MSB((rhs - 1)*INVCONST) - MSB(key1_{n-2}).
	     * Now all we have to do is find values for key0_n so that
	     * (following from (1))
	     * MSB(key1_{n-1}) = MSB(rhs-LSB(key0_n))
	     * and (following from (a) and (b)) either
	     * diff = MSB(LSB(key0_n)*INVCONST)
	     * or
	     * diff = MSB(LSB(key0_n)*INVCONST) + 1
	     *
	     * Candidate values are selected using the precomputed lookup table mTab2.
	     */
	
	
	
	 Proof of concept
	 ---------------
	
	We have been able to exploit this weak random generation  on  ZIP  files
	with more that 3 files (12*3 => 36 bytes of known plaintext),  but  with
	less than two hours on a Pentium 500Mhz with 128Mb.
	
	Attacks to ZIPs with less than 3 files might be also posible because  in
	WinZIP the two CRC most  important  bytes  are  estored  within  the  12
	"random" numbers.
	
	tocrack.zip  is  a  file  created  with  WinZIP  8.0,  the  password  is
	"&THPOL101%ISLAME@|1"  whis  is  a  19  length  password  ,  (  wich
	impossible to crack if we bruteforce the password ) , but  what  we  are
	bruteforcing is the 3 keys that are generated with the password.
	
	
	        [rmn@mightsoft ~]$ zipinfo tocrack.zip
	        Archive:  tocrack.zip   679 bytes   3 files
	        -rw-rw-rw-  2.0 fat      138 T- defX  8-Feb-03 01:31 file3.txt
	        -rw-rw-rw-  2.0 fat      163 T- defX  8-Feb-03 01:31 file2.txt
	        -rw-rw-rw-  2.0 fat      270 T- defX  8-Feb-03 01:31 file1.txt
	        3 files, 571 bytes uncompressed, 339 bytes compressed:  40.6%
	        [rmn@mightsoft ~]$ ./zipproof -p tocrack.zip
	        [*] generating posible secuences..  DONE.
	        [*] reducing number of posible Key2.. DONE.
	        [*] Bruteforcing:
	                [-] Key2 => 0x6a54f21e
	        [*] Generating initial keys:
	                [-] Key0 => 0xaca8571c
	                [-] Key1 => 0x439e8759
	                [-] Key2 => 0x508d8f22
	        [*] Tryng to get password.. Not found!
	        [E] Is not posible to find a password for these keys, you can use
	            findkeys tool (from pkcrack) to get it.
	        [rmn@mightsoft ~]$
	
	
	It was not posible to recover the password because  it  was  too  large,
	but with that keys is very easy to extract data files  from  ZIP  (using
	pkcrack zipdecrypt).
	
	        [rmn@mightsoft ~]$ ./zipdecrypt 0xaca8571c 0x439e8759 0x508d8f22 tocrack2.zip result.zip
	        Decrypting file1.txt (bb6c9531638e70d425ebe60b)... OK!
	        Decrypting file2.txt (0f57542dbf0e18517a5cee0b)... OK!
	        Decrypting file3.txt (2d2bc008f19607809298f90b)... OK!
	
	
	 Affected targets
	 ----------------
	
	This problem is in IBDL32.dll, that is used in some ZIP compresors  like
	the afore mentioned WinZIP.

SOLUTION

	 Recomendations
	 --------------
	
	Even if this problem is not present  in  your  ZIP  compressor  the  ZIP
	encryption scheme is very  weak  and  should  not  be  used  to  encrypt
	sensitive  data.  Use  zip  and  then   encrypt   with   your   favorite
	encryptation program.
	
	
	Credits -------
	
	        Mike Stevens - <mikestevens@softhome.net>
	        Elisa Flanders - <eflanders@springfield.com>
	
	
	
	Greetz ------
	        Eli Biham, Paul C. Kocher, Mikel Stay, for the papers.
	        Peter Conrad, for pkcrack.
	        Cocacola, for keeping us awake.
	
	
	Bibliography ------------
	
	        [1] - "Known Plaintext Attack on the PKZIP Stream Cipher".
	              Eli Biham and Paul C. Kocher
	
	        [2] - "ZIP Atack with reduced Known-Plaintext".
	              Mikel Stay
	
	        [3] - PKZIP Specs: APPNOTE.txt.

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