Penetration Testing: A Survival Guide

Chapter 7. Windows Privilege Escalation

Privilege escalation is the process of increasing the level of access to a machine or a network. Technically, it could be said that any exploit that gains access to a system is escalating the privileges of the attacker. Coming from no access to User access is escalating the privileges of the attacker, but normally this term is used for exploits gaining either root or SYSTEM access. In Hacker terms, Total Pwnage. This is the ultimate goal of an attacker. Once this level of access is gained, all data and control of the system is now under your control. Stealing data and/or confidential information is now just a matter of copying the data off the system. You now have the rights. In this chapter, we will cover ...