---
title: "Log4Shell JNDI Payload Injection with Outbound Connection"
excerpt: "Exploit Public-Facing Application"
categories:
  - Web
last_modified_at: 2021-12-13
toc: true
toc_label: ""
tags:
  - Exploit Public-Facing Application
  - Initial Access
  - Splunk Enterprise
  - Splunk Enterprise Security
  - Splunk Cloud
  - CVE-2021-44228
  - Network_Traffic
  - Web
---



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#### Description

CVE-2021-44228 Log4Shell payloads can be injected via various methods, but on of the most common vectors injection is via Web calls. Many of the vulnerable java web applications that are using log4j have a web component to them are specially targets of this injection, specifically projects like Apache Struts, Flink, Druid, and Solr. The exploit is triggered by a LDAP lookup function in the log4j package, its invocation is similar to `${jndi:ldap://PAYLOAD_INJECTED}`, when executed against vulnerable web applications the invocation can be seen in various part of web logs. Specifically it has been successfully exploited via headers like X-Forwarded-For, User-Agent, Referer, and X-Api-Version. In this detection we match the invocation function with a network connection to a malicious ip address.

- **Type**: [Anomaly](https://github.com/splunk/security_content/wiki/Detection-Analytic-Types)
- **Product**: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
- **Datamodel**: [Network_Traffic](https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/CIM/latest/User/NetworkTraffic), [Web](https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/CIM/latest/User/Web)
- **Last Updated**: 2021-12-13
- **Author**: Jose Hernandez
- **ID**: 69afee44-5c91-11ec-bf1f-497c9a704a72


#### [ATT&CK](https://attack.mitre.org/)

| ID             | Technique        |  Tactic             |
| -------------- | ---------------- |-------------------- |
| [T1190](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1190/) | Exploit Public-Facing Application | Initial Access |

#### Search

```

| from datamodel Web.Web 
| rex field=_raw max_match=0 "[jJnNdDiI]{4}(\:
|\%3A
|\/
|\%2F)(?<proto>\w+)(\:\/\/
|\%3A\%2F\%2F)(\$\{.*?\}(\.)?)?(?<affected_host>[a-zA-Z0-9\.\-\_\$]+)" 
| join affected_host type=inner [
| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Network_Traffic.All_Traffic by All_Traffic.dest 
| `drop_dm_object_name(All_Traffic)` 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| rename dest AS affected_host] 
| fillnull 
| stats count by action, category, dest, dest_port, http_content_type, http_method, http_referrer, http_user_agent, site, src, url, url_domain, user 
| `log4shell_jndi_payload_injection_with_outbound_connection_filter`
```

#### Macros
The SPL above uses the following Macros:
* [security_content_ctime](https://github.com/splunk/security_content/blob/develop/macros/security_content_ctime.yml)
* [security_content_summariesonly](https://github.com/splunk/security_content/blob/develop/macros/security_content_summariesonly.yml)

Note that `log4shell_jndi_payload_injection_with_outbound_connection_filter` is a empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

#### Required field
* action
* category
* dest
* dest_port
* http_content_type
* http_method
* http_referrer
* http_user_agent
* site
* src
* url
* url_domain
* user


#### How To Implement
This detection requires the Web datamodel to be populated from a supported Technology Add-On like Splunk for Apache or Splunk for Nginx.

#### Known False Positives
If there is a vulnerablility scannner looking for log4shells this will trigger, otherwise likely to have low false positives.

#### Associated Analytic story
* [Log4Shell CVE-2021-44228](/stories/log4shell_cve-2021-44228)


#### Kill Chain Phase
* Exploitation



#### RBA

| Risk Score  | Impact      | Confidence   | Message      |
| ----------- | ----------- |--------------|--------------|
| 15.0 | 50 | 30 | CVE-2021-44228 Log4Shell triggered for host $dest$ |


Note that risk score is calculated base on the following formula: `(Impact * Confidence)/100`


#### CVE

| ID          | Summary | [CVSS](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln-metrics/cvss) |
| ----------- | ----------- | -------------- |
| [CVE-2021-44228](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-44228) | Apache Log4j2 2.0-beta9 through 2.15.0 (excluding security releases 2.12.2, 2.12.3, and 2.3.1) JNDI features used in configuration, log messages, and parameters do not protect against attacker controlled LDAP and other JNDI related endpoints. An attacker who can control log messages or log message parameters can execute arbitrary code loaded from LDAP servers when message lookup substitution is enabled. From log4j 2.15.0, this behavior has been disabled by default. From version 2.16.0 (along with 2.12.2, 2.12.3, and 2.3.1), this functionality has been completely removed. Note that this vulnerability is specific to log4j-core and does not affect log4net, log4cxx, or other Apache Logging Services projects. | 9.3 |



#### Reference

* [https://www.lunasec.io/docs/blog/log4j-zero-day/](https://www.lunasec.io/docs/blog/log4j-zero-day/)



#### Test Dataset
Replay any dataset to Splunk Enterprise by using our [`replay.py`](https://github.com/splunk/attack_data#using-replaypy) tool or the [UI](https://github.com/splunk/attack_data#using-ui).
Alternatively you can replay a dataset into a [Splunk Attack Range](https://github.com/splunk/attack_range#replay-dumps-into-attack-range-splunk-server)

* [https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets/attack_techniques/T1190/log4j_proxy_logs/log4j_proxy_logs.log](https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets/attack_techniques/T1190/log4j_proxy_logs/log4j_proxy_logs.log)
* [https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets/attack_techniques/T1190/log4j_network_logs/log4j_network_logs.log](https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets/attack_techniques/T1190/log4j_network_logs/log4j_network_logs.log)



[*source*](https://github.com/splunk/security_content/tree/develop/detections/web/log4shell_jndi_payload_injection_with_outbound_connection.yml) \| *version*: **1**