performing-privilege-escalation-assessment

name	performing-privilege-escalation-assessment
description	Performs privilege escalation assessments on compromised Linux and Windows systems to identify paths from low-privilege access to root or SYSTEM-level control. The tester enumerates misconfigurations, vulnerable services, kernel exploits, SUID binaries, unquoted service paths, and credential stores to demonstrate the full impact of an initial compromise. Use when working with performing privilege escalation assessment.
domain	cybersecurity
tags	["privilege-escalation","post-exploitation","Linux-privesc","Windows-privesc","local-exploitation"]
subdomain	penetration-testing
version	1.0.0
author	oyi77
license	Apache-2.0
d3fend_techniques	["Executable Denylisting","Execution Isolation","File Metadata Consistency Validation","Restore Access","Password Authentication"]
nist_csf	["ID.RA-01","ID.RA-06","GV.OV-02","DE.AE-07"]

Performing Privilege Escalation Assessment

Overview

Cybersecurity skill for performing privilege escalation assessment. Follows industry best practices and security standards.

When to Use

Trigger phrases:

• "performing privilege escalation assessment"

• "Performs privilege escalation assessments on compromised Linux and Windows syste"

• After gaining initial low-privilege access during a penetration test to demonstrate full system compromise

• Assessing the security hardening of Linux and Windows servers against local privilege escalation attacks

• Evaluating whether endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools detect common privilege escalation techniques

• Testing the effectiveness of least-privilege policies and application whitelisting on endpoints

• Validating that container breakout and VM escape controls are properly configured

Do not use without written authorization, against production systems where exploitation could cause downtime, or for deploying kernel exploits on systems without prior approval and rollback capability.

When NOT to Use

• When you lack proper authorization for testing
• For production systems without change management
• When the task requires legal or compliance expertise beyond technical scope

Prerequisites

• Low-privilege shell access (reverse shell, SSH, RDP) to the target system obtained through authorized means
• Privilege escalation enumeration scripts: linPEAS (Linux), winPEAS (Windows), Linux Smart Enumeration (LSE)
• Compiled kernel exploits for common CVEs or access to compilation tools on the target
• GTFOBins reference for Linux SUID/sudo binary abuse and LOLBAS reference for Windows living-off-the-land binaries
• Precompiled post-exploitation binaries for the target architecture if compilation is not available on the target

Workflow

# Example: IOC detection
import re

IOC_PATTERNS = {
    "ip": r"\b(?:\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}\b",
    "domain": r"\b[a-z0-9-]+\.[a-z]{2,}\b",
    "hash_md5": r"\b[a-f0-9]{32}\b",
    "hash_sha256": ,
}

 () -> :
     {k: re.findall(v, text)  k, v  IOC_PATTERNS.items()}