MSFrop

Please note: This command is deprecated in the current version of Metasploit

As you develop exploits for newer versions of the Windows operation systems, you will find that they now have Data Execution Prevention (DEP) enabled by default. DEP prevents shellcode from being executed on the stack and has forced exploit developers to find a way around this mitigation and the so-called Return Oriented Programming (ROP) was developed.

A ROP payload in created by using pre-existing sets of instructions from non-ASLR enabled binaries to make your shellcode executable. Each set of instructions needs to end in a RETN instruction to carry on the ROP-chain with each set of instructions commonly referred to as a gadget.

The msfrop tool in Metasploit will search a given binary and return the usable gadgets.

root@kali:# msfrop -h

Options:
    -d, --depth [size]               Number of maximum bytes to backwards disassemble from return instructions
    -s, --search [regex]             Search for gadgets matching a regex, match intel syntax or raw bytes
    -n, --nocolor                    Disable color. Useful for piping to other tools like the less and more commands
    -x, --export [filename]          Export gadgets to CSV format
    -i, --import [filename]          Import gadgets from previous collections
    -v, --verbose                    Output very verbosely
    -h, --help                       Show this message

Running msfrop with the -v switch will return all of the found gadgets directly to the console:

root@kali:/tmp# msfrop -v metsrv.dll
Collecting gadgets from metsrv.dll
Found 4829 gadgets

metsrv.dll gadget: 0x10001057
0x10001057:	leave
0x10001058:	ret

metsrv.dll gadget: 0x10001241
0x10001241:	leave
0x10001242:	ret

metsrv.dll gadget: 0x1000132e
0x1000132e:	leave
0x1000132f:	ret

metsrv.dll gadget: 0x1000138c
0x1000138c:	leave
0x1000138d:	ret
...snip...

The verbose msfrop output is not particularly helpful when a binary contains thousands of gadgets, so a far more useful switch is -x which allows you to output the gadgets into a CSV file that you can then search later.

root@kali:/tmp# msfrop -x metsrv_gadgets metsrv.dll
Collecting gadgets from metsrv.dll
Found 4829 gadgets

Found 4829 gadgets total

Exporting 4829 gadgets to metsrv_gadgets
Success! gadgets exported to metsrv_gadgets
root@kali:/tmp# head -n 10 metsrv_gadgets
Address,Raw,Disassembly
"0x10001098","5ec20c00","0x10001098: pop esi | 0x10001099: ret 0ch | "
"0x100010f7","5ec20800","0x100010f7: pop esi | 0x100010f8: ret 8 | "
"0x1000113d","5dc21800","0x1000113d: pop ebp | 0x1000113e: ret 18h | "
"0x1000117a","5dc21c00","0x1000117a: pop ebp | 0x1000117b: ret 1ch | "
"0x100011c3","5dc22800","0x100011c3: pop ebp | 0x100011c4: ret 28h | "
"0x100018b5","5dc20c00","0x100018b5: pop ebp | 0x100018b6: ret 0ch | "
"0x10002cb4","c00f9fc28d54","0x10002cb4: ror byte ptr [edi], 9fh | 0x10002cb7: ret 548dh | "
"0x10002df8","0483c20483","0x10002df8: add al, -7dh | 0x10002dfa: ret 8304h | "
"0x10002e6e","080bc20fb6","0x10002e6e: or [ebx], cl | 0x10002e70: ret 0b60fh | "
root@kali:/tmp#