[BUG] Delay/Jitter adjustment broken in python agent

[janit0rjoe]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Empire Version

5.12.0

Python Version

3.12.7

Operating System

Kali Linux

Database

MariaDB

Current Behavior

The python agent does not change its delay/jitter settings upon receiving a new configuration.

As you see in the screenshots, the delay has been set to 2 sec in the first example and 30 sec in the last example. In both cases the agent checks still checks in every 5 sec.

Expected Behavior

The agent should check in corresponding to the delay/jitter set.

Steps To Reproduce

1. Spawn a python agent
2. Set sleep 30 0.0

Agent will still check in every 5 sec.

Anything else?

There is a python scope bug located in empire/server/data/agent/agent.py.

The task to change the delay/jitter is a ID=100 task that is handled by dynamic_code_execute_wait_nosave().
This method compiles python code received from the server and executes it:

    def dynamic_code_execute_wait_nosave(self, data, result_id):
    [snip]
            code_obj = compile(data, "<string>", "exec")
            exec(code_obj, globals())
            sys.stdout = sys.__stdout__
            results = buffer.getvalue()
            self.packet_handler.send_message(self.packet_handler.build_response_packet(100, str(results), result_id))
    [snip]

In case of delay/jitter setting the python code send by the server is defined in empire/server/core/agent_task_service.py:

 f"global delay; global jitter; delay={delay}; jitter={jitter}; print('delay/jitter set to {delay}/{jitter}')",

This string gets compiled and executed by the method above. This may set a global variable delay and jitter to the new value. But these not used anywhere. The delay and jitter is stored in the delay and jitter attributes of the MainAgent object. These never get adjusted, because they are not accessible within the executed statement.

The problem can be illustrated with this little script:

class Agent(object):

    def __init__(self, delay):
        self.delay = delay

    def pd(self):
        print(f'current delay: {self.delay}')

    def update(self, data):
        code_obj = compile(data, "<string>", "exec")
        exec(code_obj,globals())


t = Agent(1)

t.pd()
t.update(f"global delay; delay=2; print('delay set to 2')")
t.pd()