Ethical Hacking

16    Privilege Escalation

Once an attacker has gained access to a system, they usually want to gain more control over it to achieve their goal more easily, cover their tracks, and, if necessary, establish a permanent presence in the system. In this chapter, you will learn the following:

• What horizontal and vertical privilege escalation are

• How privilege escalation can be achieved through DLL and dylib hijacking

• What GTFOBins are and how they can be used in privilege escalation

• How to protect yourself against privilege escalation

16.1    What Is Privilege Escalation?

Privilege escalation is when an attacker attempts to increase their permissions in the system to gain access to resources that normally exceed their current permissions. ...