Remote Code Execution (RCE)

Remote code execution (RCE) occurs when an attacker can execute arbitrary code on a target machine because of a vulnerability or misconfiguration.

Hunt for RCEs

1. Identify suspicious user-input locations. For code injections, take note of every user-input location, including URL paramters, HTTP headers, body parameters, and file uploads. To find potential file inclusion vulnerabilities, check for input locations being used to determine or construct filenames and for file-upload functions.
2. Submit test payloads to the input locations in order to detect potential vulnerabilities.
3. If your requests are blocked, try protection-bypass techniques and see if your payload succeeds.
4. Finally, confirm the vulnerability by trying to execute harmless commands such as whoami, ls, and sleep 5.
5. Avoid reading sensitive system files or altering any files with the vulnerability you've found.