Exploiting Content Providers
Exploiting Content Providers
Learn & practice AWS Hacking:
HackTricks Training AWS Red Team Expert (ARTE)
Learn & practice GCP Hacking: 
HackTricks Training GCP Red Team Expert (GRTE)
Intro
Data is supplied from one application to others on request by a component known as a content provider. These requests are managed through the ContentResolver class methods. Content providers can store their data in various locations, such as a database, files, or over a network.
In the Manifest.xml file, the declaration of the content provider is required. For instance:
<provider android:name=".DBContentProvider" android:exported="true" android:multiprocess="true" android:authorities="com.mwr.example.sieve.DBContentProvider">
<path-permission android:readPermission="com.mwr.example.sieve.READ_KEYS" android:writePermission="com.mwr.example.sieve.WRITE_KEYS" android:path="/Keys"/>
</provider>To access content://com.mwr.example.sieve.DBContentProvider/Keys, the READ_KEYS permission is necessary. It's interesting to note that the path /Keys/ is accessible in the following section, which is not protected due to a mistake by the developer, who secured /Keys but declared /Keys/.
Maybe you can access private data or exploit some vulnerability (SQL Injection or Path Traversal).
Get info from exposed content providers
It's possible to piece together how to reach the DBContentProvider by starting URIs with “content://”. This approach is based on insights gained from using Drozer, where key information was located in the /Keys directory.
Drozer can guess and try several URIs:
You should also check the ContentProvider code to search for queries:
Also, if you can't find full queries you could check which names are declared by the ContentProvider on the onCreate method:
The query will be like: content://name.of.package.class/declared_name
Database-backed Content Providers
Probably most of the Content Providers are used as interface for a database. Therefore, if you can access it you could be able to extract, update, insert and delete information. Check if you can access sensitive information or try to change it to bypass authorisation mechanisms.
When checking the code of the Content Provider look also for functions named like: query, insert, update and delete:
Because you will be able to call them
Query content
Insert content
Quering the database you will learn the name of the columns, then, you could be able to insert data in the DB:
Note that in insert and update you can use --string to indicate string, --double to indicate a double, --float, --integer, --long, --short, --boolean
Update content
Knowing the name of the columns you could also modify the entries:
Delete content
SQL Injection
It is simple to test for SQL injection (SQLite) by manipulating the projection and selection fields that are passed to the content provider. When quering the Content Provider there are 2 interesting arguments to search for information: --selection and --projection:
You can try to abuse this parameters to test for SQL injections:
Automatic SQLInjection discovery by Drozer
File System-backed Content Providers
Content providers could be also used to access files:
Read file
You can read files from the Content Provider
Path Traversal
If you can access files, you can try to abuse a Path Traversal (in this case this isn't necessary but you can try to use "../" and similar tricks).
Automatic Path Traversal discovery by Drozer
References
Learn & practice AWS Hacking:HackTricks Training AWS Red Team Expert (ARTE)
Learn & practice GCP Hacking: HackTricks Training GCP Red Team Expert (GRTE)
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