This patch shows a very simple way to find post-Shellshock bugs in bash, as discussed here: http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2014/10/bash-bug-how-we-finally-cracked.html In essence, it shows a way to fuzz environmental variables. Instructions: 1) Download bash 4.3, apply this patch, compile with: CC=/path/to/afl-gcc ./configure make clean all Note that the harness puts the fuzzed output in $TEST_VARIABLE. With Florian's Shellshock patch (bash43-028), this is no longer passed down to the parser. 2) Create and cd to an empty directory, put the compiled bash binary in there, and run these commands: mkdir in_dir echo -n '() { a() { a; }; : >b; }' >in_dir/script.txt 3) Run the fuzzer with: /path/to/afl-fuzz -d -i in_dir -o out_dir ./bash -c : The -d parameter is advisable only if the tested shell is fairly slow or if you are in a hurry; will cover more ground faster, but less systematically. 4) Watch for crashes in out_dir/crashes/. Also watch for any new files created in cwd if you're interested in non-crash RCEs (files will be created whenever the shell executes "foo>bar" or something like that). You can correlate their creation date with new entries in out_dir/queue/. You can also modify the bash binary to directly check for more subtle fault conditions, or use the synthesized entries in out_dir/queue/ as a seed for other, possibly slower or more involved testing regimes. Expect several hours to get decent coverage. --- bash-4.3/shell.c.orig 2014-01-14 14:04:32.000000000 +0100 +++ bash-4.3/shell.c 2015-04-30 05:56:46.000000000 +0200 @@ -371,6 +371,14 @@ env = environ; #endif /* __OPENNT */ + { + + static char val[1024 * 16]; + read(0, val, sizeof(val) - 1); + setenv("TEST_VARIABLE", val, 1); + + } + USE_VAR(argc); USE_VAR(argv); USE_VAR(env);