SharpSphere v2.1 releases: Attacking vSphere Infrastructure

by do son · Published January 26, 2021 · Updated November 11, 2021

SharpSphere – Attacking vSphere Infrastructure

SharpSphere gives red teamers the ability to easily interact with the guest operating systems of virtual machines managed by vCenter. It uses the vSphere Web Services API and exposes the following functions:

Command & Control – In combination with F-Secure’s C3, SharpSphere provides C&C into VMs using VMware Tools, with no direct network connectivity to the target VM required.
Code Execution – Allows arbitrary commands to be executed in the guest OS and returns the result
File Upload – Allows arbitrary files to be uploaded to the guest OS
File Download – Allows arbitrary files to be downloaded from the guest OS
List VMs – Tests supplied credentials inside the guest OS

SharpSphere supports execution through Cobalt Strike’s execute-assembly.

Use

Available modules:

SharpSphere.exe help

list List all VMs managed by this vCenter

execute Execute given command in target VM

c2 Run C2 using C3’s VMwareShareFile module

upload Upload file to target VM

download Download file from target VM

help Display more information on a specific command.

version Display version information.

List VMs:

SharpSphere.exe list –help

–url Required. vCenter SDK URL, i.e. https://127.0.0.1/sdk

–username Required. vCenter username, i.e. administrator@vsphere.local

–password Required. vCenter password

Code execution:

SharpSphere.exe execute –help

–url Required. vCenter SDK URL, i.e. https://127.0.0.1/sdk

–username Required. vCenter username, i.e. administrator@vsphere.local

–password Required. vCenter password

–ip Required. Target VM IP address

–guestusername Required. Username used to authenticate to the guest OS

–guestpassword Required. Password used to authenticate to the guest OS

–command Required. Command to execute

–output (Default: false) Flag to receive the output. Will create a temporary file in C:\Users\Public on the
guest to save the output. This is then downloaded and printed to the console and the file deleted.

Command & Control:

SharpSphere.exe c2 –help

–url Required. vCenter SDK URL, i.e. https://127.0.0.1/sdk

–username Required. vCenter username, i.e. administrator@vsphere.local

–password Required. vCenter password

–ip Required. Target VM IP address

–guestusername Required. Username used to authenticate to the guest OS

–guestpassword Required. Password used to authenticate to the guest OS

–localdir Required. Full path to the C3 directory on this machine

–guestdir Required. Full path to the C3 directory on the guest OS

–inputid Required. Input ID configured for the C3 relay running on this machine

–outputid Required. Output ID configured for the C3 relay running on this machine

File Upload:

SharpSphere.exe upload –help

–url Required. vCenter SDK URL, i.e. https://127.0.0.1/sdk

–username Required. vCenter username, i.e. administrator@vsphere.local

–password Required. vCenter password

–ip Required. Target VM IP address

–guestusername Required. Username used to authenticate to the guest OS

–guestpassword Required. Password used to authenticate to the guest OS

–source Required. Full path to local file to upload

–destination Required. Full path to location where file should be uploaded

File Download:

>SharpSphere.exe download –help

–url Required. vCenter SDK URL, i.e. https://127.0.0.1/sdk

–username Required. vCenter username, i.e. administrator@vsphere.local

–password Required. vCenter password

–ip Required. Target VM IP address

–guestusername Required. Username used to authenticate to the guest OS

–guestpassword Required. Password used to authenticate to the guest OS

–source Required. Full path in the guest to the file to upload

–destination Required. Full path to the local directory where the file should be downloaded

Full walk-through and examples are available here.