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Application & OT Security · Intermediate

Post-Exploitation

The pentest phase after initial compromise that assesses what an attacker could achieve, such as privilege escalation, lateral movement and data access.

Definition

Within authorized scope, testers demonstrate business impact, gather evidence and identify detection gaps. Rules of engagement typically limit data handling, persistence and destructive actions, and testers must clean up artifacts afterward.

Example

After compromising a web server, testers show they could reach the customer database using credentials found in a config file.

Exam tip

Demonstrating impact is the goal; cleanup of accounts and tools is required.

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