Security Operations · Intermediate

Privilege Escalation

Gaining higher-level permissions than originally granted, such as moving from a standard user to administrator or root.

Definition

Vertical privilege escalation raises access level, while horizontal escalation accesses another user's resources at the same level. Attackers exploit kernel vulnerabilities, misconfigured services, weak permissions, SUID binaries, token manipulation and credential theft. It is the ATT&CK tactic TA0004.

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