ExploitWP2Docker: a Platform for Automating the Generation of Vulnerable WordPress Environments for Cyber Ranges

TL;DR

This paper introduces ExploitWP2Docker, a platform that automates the creation of vulnerable WordPress environments for cyber ranges by leveraging public exploit data and container virtualization.

Contribution

It presents a novel automated approach to generate vulnerable WordPress setups using public exploit information and container technology, reducing manual configuration effort.

Findings

Successfully automates vulnerable environment generation

Uses public exploit databases for configuration

Employs container virtualization for lightweight deployment

Abstract

A cyber range is a realistic simulation of an organization's network infrastructure, commonly used for cyber security training purposes. It provides a safe environment to assess competencies in both offensive and defensive techniques. An important step during the realization of a cyber range is the generation of vulnerable machines. This step is challenging and requires a laborious manual configuration. Several works aim to reduce this overhead, but the current state-of-the-art focuses on generating network services without considering the effort required to build vulnerable environments for web applications. A cyber range should represent a real system, and nowadays, almost all the companies develop their company site by using WordPress, a common Content Management System (CMS), which is also one of the most critical attackers' entry points. The presented work proposes an approach to automatically create and configure vulnerable WordPress applications by using the information presented in public exploits. Our platform automatically extracts information from the most well-known publicly available exploit database in order to generate and configure vulnerable environments. The container-based virtualization is used to generate lightweight and easily deployable infrastructures. A final evaluation highlights promising results regarding the possibility of automating the generation of vulnerable environments through our approach.