MASTG-DEMO-0059: Using SharedPreferences to Write Sensitive Data Unencrypted to the App Sandbox
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Sample¶
The code below stores sensitive data using the SharedPreferences API, both with and without encryption:
- An AWS key is stored encrypted
- A GitHub token is stored unencrypted
- A set of binary pre-shared keys is stored unencrypted
When encryption is performed, it uses a securely generated key stored in the Android KeyStore.
| MastgTest.kt | |
|---|---|
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When executing the code, you will be able to inspect the shared preferences file created in the app sandbox. For example, run the following command:
adb shell cat /data/data/org.owasp.mastestapp/shared_prefs/MasSharedPref_Sensitive_Data.xml
Which returns:
| MasSharedPref_Sensitive_Data.xml | |
|---|---|
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All unencrypted entries can be leveraged by an attacker.
Steps¶
- Install the app on a device ( Installing Apps)
- Make sure you have Frida for Android installed on your machine and the frida-server running on the device
- Run
run.shto spawn the app with Frida - Click the Start button
- Stop the script by pressing
Ctrl+Cand/orqto quit the Frida CLI
These are the relevant methods we are hooking to detect the use of SharedPreferences to write strings:
- SharedPreferences.Editor.putString(...)
- SharedPreferences.Editor.putStringSet(...)
Our hooks also trace calls to cryptographic methods to help determine whether the written values are encrypted or not; whether the Android KeyStore is used; and whether Base64 encoding is used to convert binary data to strings:
- javax.crypto.Cipher.*(...)
- java.security.KeyStore.*(...)
- javax.crypto.KeyGenerator.*(...)
- android.util.Base64.*(...)
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Observation¶
The output shows all instances of strings written via SharedPreferences that were found at runtime. A backtrace is also provided to help identify the corresponding locations in the code.
| output.json | |
|---|---|
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Evaluation¶
The test fails because secrets are written to SharedPreferences without encryption.
In output.json we can identify several entries that use the SharedPreferences API to write strings to the app's local sandbox—in this case, to /data/data/org.owasp.mastestapp/shared_prefs/MasSharedPref_Sensitive_Data.xml.
Determining if a string is encrypted or not, especially with crypto keys can be challenging.
Option 1: High level trace inspection¶
After slightly processing the output using jq, we can get a high level view of the relevant calls, which can help us identify unencrypted secrets.
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Here we can see that:
- the value
ghp_1234567890a...is not preceded by any Cipher calls when written viaputString. - the value
V1QyXhGV88RQLmMjoTLLl...has several calls to Cipher and then aputString. - the set of values
MIIEvAIBADAN...andgJXS9EwpuzK8...are also not preceded by any Cipher calls when written viaputStringSet.
Option 2: Pattern matching¶
At this point you could use a secrets detection tool such as gitleaks to try to detect any secrets present in cleartext or encoded.
cat ./output.json | gitleaks -v stdin
○
│╲
│ ○
○ ░
░ gitleaks
Finding: "value": "-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\nMIIEvAIBADANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAASCAmIwggJeAgEAAoGBALfX7kbfFv3pc3JjOHQ=\n-...,-----BEGIN PRIVATE ...
Secret: -----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\nMIIEvAIBADANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAASCAmIwggJeAgEAAoGBALfX7kbfFv3pc3JjOHQ=\n-...
RuleID: private-key
Entropy: 4.884846
Finding: ...END PRIVATE KEY-----,-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\ngJXS9EwpuzK8U1TOgfplwfKEVngCE2D5FNBQWvNmuHHbigmTCabsA=\n-----END PRIVAT...
Secret: -----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\ngJXS9EwpuzK8U1TOgfplwfKEVngCE2D5FNBQWvNmuHHbigmTCabsA=\n-----END PRIVAT...
RuleID: private-key
Entropy: 4.945110
Finding: "value": "AKIAABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP
Secret: AKIAABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP
RuleID: aws-access-token
Entropy: 3.884184
Finding: "value": "ghp_1234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvABCD
Secret: ghp_1234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvABCD
RuleID: github-pat
Entropy: 5.171928
Option 3: Detailed trace inspection¶
The provided output.json in this case allows you to trace the written values back to cryptographic method calls and this way find out whether they are encrypted. For example, let's analyze the EncryptedAwsKey with value V1QyXhGV88RQLmMjoTLLl...:
V1QyXhGV88RQLmMjoTLLl...is the return value ofBase64.encodeToStringfor the input0x5754325e1195f3c45....0xa132cb95022985beis the return value ofCipher.doFinalfor the inputAKIAABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP.
However, we cannot find any calls to Base64.encodeToString or Cipher.* for the preSharedKeys values written by putStringSet (MIIEvAIBADAN... and gJXS9EwpuzK8...).
Option 4: Manual reverse engineering¶
You can confirm this by reverse engineering the app and inspecting the code. Review the stackTrace of the putString and putStringSet entries, then navigate to the corresponding locations in the code. For example, open the org.owasp.mastestapp.MastgTest.mastgTest method and try to trace back the input parameters to determine whether they are encrypted.