Privilege Escalation
Definition
A post-access technique in which an attacker who has gained low-level access to a system exploits a vulnerability or misconfiguration to obtain higher-level privileges, such as administrator or root access, enabling deeper compromise.
- Stage
- Post-access technique
- Starting point
- Low-level system access
- Goal
- Administrator or root-level access
- Method
- Exploiting a vulnerability or misconfiguration
Common questions
How does privilege escalation differ from the initial breach of a system?+
The initial breach, such as a phishing email or exploited login flaw, gets the attacker a foothold with limited permissions; privilege escalation is the separate, later step of exploiting the system itself to expand those permissions to full administrative control.
What kind of forensic artefacts help establish that privilege escalation occurred?+
Event and security logs showing an account's permission level changing, unusual process execution under elevated credentials, and timestamps linking the escalation to the exploited vulnerability's known indicators are the artefacts investigators typically rely on to reconstruct this step.
Related terms
- Anti-Forensic Technique
- Any action taken by an attacker to destroy, conceal, or alter evidence of their activity. Common examples include log clearing, timestomping, use...
- Credential Stuffing
- An automated attack that replays username-password pairs from previous data breaches against new target services, exploiting the widespread reuse of passwords across...
- Lateral Movement
- Attacker activity after initial compromise in which the threat actor traverses from one internal system to another, typically to escalate privileges, access...
- Living-Off-the-Land (LotL)
- An attack approach where the adversary uses tools and binaries already present on the target system, such as PowerShell, WMI, certutil, or...
- Unauthorised Access
- The act of accessing a computer, network, or data store without permission from the owner or without lawful authority. The core element...