📖
Notes
  • 🙌Welcome!
  • CyberSecurity
    • Penetration Testing
      • ELearnSecurity
        • eJPT
          • Footprinting & Scanning
            • Port Scanning
            • Mapping Networks
          • Information Gathering
            • Subdomain Enumeration
          • Network Attacks
            • Arp Poisoning
            • Null Sessions
            • Windows Shares
            • Authentication Cracking
          • Networking
            • Python Server to Receive Exfiltrated Data
            • CLI Tool to interact with HTTP/HTTPS
          • Programming
            • C++ Keylogger
            • C++ Information Stealer
          • System Attacks
            • Pivoting
            • Backdoor
          • Vulnerability Assessment
          • Web Attacks
            • SQL Injection
            • HTTP Verbs
            • Web Server Fingerprinting
      • PortSwigger
        • Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS)
          • Access-Control-Allow-Origin response header
          • Vulnerabilities arising from Misconfigurations
            • Server-generated ACAO header from client-specified Origin header
            • Errors parsing Origin headers
            • Whitelisted null origin value
            • Exploiting XSS via CORS trust relationships
            • Breaking TLS with poorly configured CORS
            • Intranets and CORS without credentials
            • Mitigations
        • Sql Injection
          • Examining the database
          • Retrieving data from other database tables
          • Blind SQL injection
          • Mitigation
      • TryHackMe
        • Main Methodology
          • 1. Reconnaissance
            • Google Dorking
            • Metadata Reader/Writer
            • Steghide - Stegnography
            • OSINT Framework
          • 2. Enumeration/Scanning
            • NFS Enumeration Tools
            • NMAP - Port Scanning
            • Web Enumeration Tools
            • SMB Enumeration Tools
            • SMTP Enumeration Tools
            • Shodan - IOT Search Engine
            • FTP Enumeration Tools
            • Wordpress Enumeration Tools
            • OWASP ZAP - WebApp Testing
            • BurpSuite - WebApp Testing
            • MySQL Enumeration Tools
            • Wordlists
          • 3. Gaining Access / Exploitation
            • Buffer Overflow
              • 1. Immunity Debugger
              • 2. Mona Setup
              • 3. Spiking
              • 4. Fuzzing
              • 5. Crash Replication & Controlling EIP
              • 6. Finding Bad Characters
              • 7. Find a Jump Point
              • 8. Generate Payload
              • 9. Prepend NOPs
              • 10. Final Buffer
            • Cryptography
              • Hash Crack Tools
              • Online Password Cracking Tools
              • Encryption
              • John the Ripper
            • Evasion Techniques
            • Shells
              • Powershell
              • Msfvenom
              • Meterpreter
              • Metasploit -- multi/handler
              • Netcat
              • Socat
            • Web Applications
              • OWASP Top 10
              • File Upload Vulnerabilities
              • Authentication Vulnerability
              • XML External Entity (XXE)
              • Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
              • ZTH: Obscure Web Vulns
              • Server Side Request Forgery (SSRF)
              • Insecure Direct Object Reference (IDOR)
              • ZTH : Continued
              • File Inclusion Vulnerability
                • Local File Inclusion (LFI)
                • Log Poisoning Attack (LFI to RCE via Log files)
            • Windows Applications
              • Jenkins
              • Windows Active Directory
                • Impacket's secretsdump.py
                • Kerberos
                  • Enumerating Users with Kerbrute
                  • Enumerating SPN Accounts with Powershell
                  • Get SPN Account Ticket with Invoke-Kerberoast
                  • Kerberoasting with Rubeus & Impacket
                  • AS-REP Roasting with Rubeus/GetNPUsers.py
                  • Pass the Ticket with mimikatz
                  • Golden/Silver Ticket Attacks with mimikatz
                  • Kerberos Backdoors with mimikatz
                  • Harvesting and Brute-Forcing with Rubeus
                  • Conclusion and Resources
          • 4. Post Exploitation
            • Privilege Escalation
              • Linux
                • 1. Introduction
                • 2. Scripts
                • 3. Kernel Exploits
                • 4. Service Exploits
                • 5. Weak File Permissions
                • 6. Sudo
                • 7. Cron jobs
                • 8. SUID/SGID Executable
                • 9. CAP_SETUID Capabilities Executable
                • 10. Passwords & Keys
                • 11. NFS
                • PrivEsc CTF Checklists
              • Windows
                • Token Impersonation
                • PrivEsc CTF Checklists
                • Permission
                • Scripts
                • Unquoted Service Path
            • Tools
              • Meterpreter Modules
              • Impacket's Psexec
              • Impacket's mssqlclient.py
              • Firefox Decryptor
              • Socat - Reverse TCP Tunnel
            • Windows Active Directory
              • Enumeration with Powerview
              • Enumeration with Bloodhound (GUI)
              • Dumping Hashes with mimikatz
              • Golden Ticket Attacks with mimikatz
              • Enumeration with Server Manager
              • Maintaining Access
              • Additional Resources
          • 5. Covering Tracks
          • 6. Reporting
        • Networking Concepts
          • SSH Reverse Tunnels
        • Scripting
          • Curl
          • Powershell
            • Basic Powershell Commands
            • Enumeration
        • Web Extensions
          • Shodan
          • Wappalyzer
      • Miscellaneous
        • SMTP Enumeration
        • Nmap Advanced Scanning
        • Persistence via Meterpreter
        • DNS Enumeration
        • NetBIOS & SMB
        • DHCP Starvation
        • Packet Manipulation
        • Hash Cracking
        • MITM
        • Msfvenom Payload in APK (Manual Embedding)
    • Blue Teaming
      • Digital Forensics & Incidence Response
        • Memory Acquisition with LIME
        • Disk Analysis with Autopsy
        • Data and Memory Collection with FireEye Redline
        • Memory Forensice with Volatility
      • Intrusion Detection
        • Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS)
        • Threat Monitoring with Security Information & Event Management (SIEM)
        • Security Event Monitoring
        • Host Based Intrusion Detection System (HIDS) - OSSEC
      • Miscellaneous
        • Docker Image Security Analysis with Trivy
  • DevOps
    • Infrastructure as a Code (IaC)
      • Ansible
        • 1. Playbooks
        • 2. Modules
        • 3. Inventory
        • 4. Roles
        • 5. Ansible Tower
      • Terraform
        • 1. Overview
        • 2. Modify Resources
        • 3. Delete Resources
        • 4. Reference Resources
        • 5. Terraform Files
        • 6. Terraform State Commands
        • 7. Terraform Output
        • 8. Target Resources
        • 9. Terraform Variables
        • 10. Expressions + Functions
        • 11. Meta-Arguments
        • 12. Modules
        • 13. Managing Multiple Environments
        • 14. Testing Terraform Code
        • 15. Final Thoughts
    • Orchestration
      • Kubernetes
        • 1. Main K8s Components
        • 2. K8s Architecture
        • 3. Minikube & Kubectl
        • 4. YAML Configuration File
        • 5. K8s Namespaces
        • 6. K8s Ingress
        • 7. Helm - Package Manager of K8s
        • 8. K8 Volumes
        • 9. K8 StatefulSet
        • 10. K8 Services
  • Development
    • Blockchain
      • FreeCodeCamp Course
        • 1. Introduction
        • 2. Solidity Basics
        • 3. Storage Factory
        • 4. Fund Me
        • 5. Ethers.js
        • 6. Hardhat
        • 7. Hardhat | Fund Me
        • 8. Contract Lottery | Raffle
        • 9. IPFS
        • 10. ERC20s
        • 11. DeFi & Aave
        • 12. NFTs | Encoding
        • 13. Reentrancy Attack
    • Backend
      • NodeJs
        • Introduction
        • Additional Concepts
        • ExpressJs
    • Database
      • SQL
        • Basics
          • 1. Querying Data
          • 2. Filtering Data
          • 3. Joining Multiple Tables
          • 4. Grouping Data
          • 5. Set Operations
          • 6. Grouping Sets, Cube, and Rollup
          • 7. Subquery
          • 8. Common Table Expressions
          • 9. Modifying Data
          • 10. Transactions
          • 11. Import & Export Data
          • 12. Managing Tables
    • Testing
      • Test Driven Development (TDD)
      • Jest js
      • Cypress js
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On this page
  1. CyberSecurity
  2. Penetration Testing
  3. TryHackMe
  4. Main Methodology
  5. 4. Post Exploitation

Privilege Escalation

After we have gained access to a victim machine via the exploitation phase, the next step is to escalate privileges to a higher user account. The following accounts are what we try to reach as a pentester:

  • In the Windows world, the target account is usually: Administrator or System.

  • In the Linux world, the target account is usually: root

As you can tell, discovering what Operating System a device is running on is very important to determine how we will escalate our privileges later. Once we gain access as a lower level user, we will try to run another exploit or find a way to become root or administrator.

Privilege escalation can take many, many forms, some examples are:

  • Cracking password hashes found on the target

  • Finding a vulnerable service or version of a service which will allow you to escalate privilege THROUGH the service

  • Password spraying of previously discovered credentials (password re-use)

  • Using default credentials

  • Finding secret keys or SSH keys stored on a device which will allow pivoting to another machine

  • Running scripts or commands to enumerate system settings like 'ifconfig' to find network settings, or the command 'find / -perm

  • -4000 -type f 2>/dev/null' to see if the user has access to any commands they can run as root


Types

There are two main privilege escalation variants:

1. Horizontal privilege escalation

This is where you expand your reach over the compromised system by taking over a different user who is on the same privilege level as you. For instance, a normal user hijacking another normal user (rather than elevating to super user). This allows you to inherit whatever files and access that user has. This can be used, for example, to gain access to another normal privilege user, that happens to have an SUID file attached to their home directory which can then be used to get super user access. [Travel sideways on the tree]

2. Vertical privilege escalation (privilege elevation)

This is where you attempt to gain higher privileges or access, with an existing account that you have already compromised. For local privilege escalation attacks this might mean hijacking an account with administrator privileges or root privileges. [Travel up on the tree]


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Last updated 1 year ago