Questions tagged [privilege-escalation]

Privilege escalation is the act of exploiting a bug, design flaw or configuration oversight in an operating system or software application to gain elevated access throughout the environment

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what are legitimate reason for a program to need access to /proc/self/mem [migrated]

I have noticed that both browsers Firefox and Chromium on linux do open the file /proc/self/mem for reading. No other program on my system reads this file, as far as I can tell. /proc/self/mem is ...
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Privilege Escalation

Suppose I have an Admin account and a normal user account. There is some functionality that is only accessible to the admin only, like promoting other users. In this scenario, I captured a request ...
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Online Judge running on root [duplicate]

My college has a website which allows students to submit coding assignments by running them on an Online IDE which checks the output against several test cases. I noticed by running system(“whoami”) ...
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Vulnerability in the source code, but can't elevate do Privilege Escalation

Playing a CTF, I am trying to gain access to level 3 (you have to gain access sequentially from level 1 to level 2 and so on...), and in the level 2 directory there's this source code 2.c and along ...
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Rowhammer mitigations in current hardware and software

I've been looking into rowhammer attacks and mitigations and there are two (what seem to be) mitigations that I've seen that are actually implemented in currently available hardware and software, but ...
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Local privilege escalation - DLL Hijacking questions

I have a couple of questions regarding LPE techniques, and especially DLL hijacking (as there are at least 6 variants). I was reading that DLL hijacking is an old vulnerability, but surely, this is ...
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Abusing Shell Feature for Privilege Escalation

This was covered in Linux PrivEsc, task 15, in this TryHackMe room. I am having trouble understanding how this debugging mode is executing the commands in the PS4 variable, and why I must put /usr/...
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Legitimate use cases for writable etc/passwd files

I´m learning about linux privilege escalation via a writable /etc/passwd file and was wondering how common that actualy is? Are there any use cases where a regular user might have (or even needs) ...
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What prevents Windows from being as secure as Linux? [duplicate]

According to wikipedia, Linux's security compared to Windows is generally due to "the malware's lack of root access." Why doesn't Windows just fix this?
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Is there any way to disable/not allow unquoted service paths in Windows?

Unquoted service paths might be used as a privilege escalation vector after an attacker gains access to a Windows host. Given Hector's answer in the following question: "Windows Unquoted Search&...
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Can I escalate my privileges if I have read-write access to IAM service in AWS?

We are trying to convince folks in our company to grant developers full privileges to all services in "dev" account (current policy does not allow developers to create anything in our AWS ...
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Why can't I access /tmp after my execve(/bin/sh) exploit? [closed]

I succesfully tried to exploit an old version of Apache. A shell is spawned with user www-data (id=33), but I can't "ls" or "cat" anything in /tmp. I can ls the contentns of /bin ...
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At which OS privilege level log4j usually runs?

Considering that a RCE vulnerability has been recently found in the log4j library, a library used in a lot more applications than I thought. The following question comes to my mind. If an attacker ...
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Privilege escalation : Is this step really necessary?

I understand the LD_preload trick, but in this tutorial(https://www.hackingarticles.in/linux-privilege-escalation-using-ld_preload/), they not only give the user the right to keep this environment ...
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Can a process executed as Root do ring 0 stuff?

I know that ring 0 is a CPU concept, but are processes running as root allowed to run instructions that require ring 0 such as changing the cr3 register for the page table ?
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Why is sudo's usage of timestamp files insecure?

Sudo and Opendoas on Linux use timestamp files to keep track of how long it's been since you've last entered your password. Doas on BSD uses a kernel feature instead. Why is the latter considered more ...
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Understanding the Meltdown vulnerability

I need to write a simple program that demonstrates a race condition. I picked the Meltdown vulnerability. I want to clarify something. I'm following this explanation https://resources.infosecinstitute....
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Authorise access to hierarchical data

Consider a scenario in which you offer service access based on a hierarchy of authority. i.e., a HEAD can register his subordinates. The authenticated HEAD has the previledge to read and update data ...
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If browsing the web with root is dangerous, isn't browsing the web with a sudo enabled account only marginally safer?

If I get hit with malware while performing daily tasks (e.g. - checking email, web browsing, etc.) with a root shell, the malware will own my machine. If the aforementioned occurs whilst on a standard ...
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PowerShell - privilege escalation [closed]

In the past, I have used the Sherlock PowerShell script to quickly find missing software patches for local privilege escalation vulnerabilities. However, I am looking for a similar script, but I ...
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Secure way to run a linux binary which needs access to ressources only available to root?

As a developer, I ask how to approach security concerns regarding permissions of a binary which needs access to resources only available to root users. For example, let's think of a simple tool which ...
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Sudo -l systemctl bypass

I am trying to privilege escalate a vulnerable box and I've stuck with this output: sudo -l Matching Defaults entries for charlie on sewers: env_reset, mail_badpass, secure_path=/usr/local/...
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SUID Priv Escalation - LD_LIBRARY_PATH versus ldconfig and /etc/ld.so.conf

Background Currently doing some vulnservers on Offensive Security's Proving Grounds Practice Labs. A vulnserver is a machine configured with vulnerabilities for testing/audit and research purposes. I ...
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How to fine tune timing for CVE-2021-3156 (sudo privilege escalation)?

I am trying to execute the sudo buffer overflow (CVE-2021-3156) on one of my systems, but haven't got it working yet. The system is definitely vulnerable (taking into account sudo version and sudoedit ...
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Spawning child processes from root using runuser command

I am working as an intern for an online coding platform startup (similar to LeetCode or HackerRank). The backend is written in Nodejs. Instead of running the code in a sandbox of some sort, the lead ...
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Is there a way to change your current UID to equal your EUID?

Here is the scenario: running id gives this : uid=1001(test1) gid=1001(test1) euid=1000(bl4ckc4t) groups=1001(test1) - This means that I am user test1, but my euid is set to another user. My goal is ...
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Privilege escalation using symlink [closed]

I am working on a "Hack me" challenge, I have access to apache account in the server, I tried to get root access, I run linpeas.sh script and linpeas didn't find anything special, however, ...
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How to run PrintSpoofer in memory from powershell?

PrintSpoofer uses named pipe impersonation to elevate on Windows 10 to SYSTEM from a user with SeImpersonatePrivilege (Local Service, Network Service, Administrator etc.). The compiled version is ...
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Prevent a remote privilege escalation when the root/admin password is known

Consider the following Linux system: root account is disabled (passwd -l root, passwd -d root), there is an account 'admin', with sudo rights, there is an account 'webservice', with limited ...
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Sudo "/usr/sbin/halt", "/usr/sbin/reboot", "/usr/sbin/poweroff" - how to leverage it to privilege escalation?

A normal user can execute these commands as root without providing any password (sudo includes the full path of the command so path hijack isn't the case here), could "halt", "reboot&...
2 votes
1 answer
186 views

Possible to inject in the middle of a ROOT NOPASSWD command with a wild card?

I'm testing for privilege escalations on a Ubuntu 18.04 host, and after running sudo -l , I've discovered a couple of root NOPASSWD commands for a standard user (w/unknown password). These commands ...
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How safe is it to use SMB file share on a machine running up-to-date Windows 10 LTSC through the Internet?

Running Windows 10 LTSC. Forwarded 445 port on the router to Windows SMB. Assuming that: My machine has no viruses in it (fresh Windows installation) It has been updated to the latest OS release I am ...
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Running non-root process in docker vs bare metal

Recently I faced argument that threw me a bit off balance. I've been suggested that running application bare metal is actually more secure than running it in container. Reasoning behind that is that ...
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Exploit apache2 service as member of www-data group

I am attempting to solve a CTF challenge where I am logged in as a member of the www-data group and the apache2 service is misconfigured and can be run as sudo without a password. What I am attempting ...
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Linux: Can unprivileged users tamper with processes running under their own identity?

Having the following pseudocode executed by a superuser, is it safe to assume that it is secure on Linux? if fork() == 0: # drop privileges to an unprivileged user, let's say "nobody" #...
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How can I use nohup command to get root access of the target machine?

I am playing ctf and I have gained access to the target machine but not as root. I can see nohup utility has root access on the machine and I used this command to get the root access but that did not ...
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Host filesystem manipulation from docker vs. virtual machine

When reading about docker, I found a part of the documentation describing the attack surface of the docker daemon. From what I was able to understand, part of the argument is that it is possible to ...
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Taking over Windows DC as a domain user

What do you suggest in order to take over a Windows Domain Controller, given the fact that you gained access to a domain user workstation and so you have domain user credentials? I have domain user ...
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inject update-motd.d 00-header to run a script on ssh login

Is there a way to inject the 00-header to trigger a script that executes a shell upon ssh login. I'm facing a scenario where the 00-header has root privileges and I can modify it. I'm trying to have ...
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linuxpam-pam unix-security-bypass

https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/31739 linuxpam-pamunix-security-bypass (31739) reported Jan 23, 2007 Linux-PAM could allow a remote attacker to bypass security restrictions, ...
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I am a member of the Administrators group on a Windows 7 box, how can I spawn a reverse shell with elevated privileges?

I am learning Windows Privilege escalation. I've managed to add a user to the Administrators group but I don't know how to execute nc.exe, present in the Temp dir, with elevated privileges. I am ...
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Is `sudo` almost useless?

Once an attacker has a shell as your sudoer user (or just compromised a local process enough), he/she can use one of the many privilege escalation tool to even automatically put themselves for example ...
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How do I know/find out about Minecraft Server Vulnerabilities?

I remember playing Minecraft (Java-we're only talking about Minecraft Java on the computer here) at like 13-14 years old, and having this server owner claim that the server has been hacked, and that ...
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What does the following lines of code mean? Can anyone explain step by step? [closed]

I'm still learning and this was a part of using systemctl for privilege escalation. eop=$(mktemp).service echo '[Service] ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "cat /root/root.txt > /tmp/output" [Install] ...
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Exectuting sudo command in one line within a non-tty shell

I have access to a server via RCE over http. I can send post requests to the server which results in command execution. I am attempting to escalate privileges via sudo (su is not installed). The ...
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Does sudo ever de-escalate privilege while the program/command/service is running?

For Example Is it safer to do: $ sudo [cmd] [args] [enter user password] or $ su - [enter root password] # [cmd] [args] I always assumed they are the exact same thing, because sudo utilizes ...
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Powershell (WinRM) and cmd.exe: reg query output deviation

during a CTF I encountered the following anomaly regarding PS & cmd.exe: I got access to a Windows x86 server through WinRM Port 5985 using evil-winrm. (https://github.com/Hackplayers/evil-winrm) ...
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Why not use sudo instead of setuid/setgid?

If it is an insecure practise to use setuid/setgid binaries, why do distributions, OSes force it? The big question: what prevents using sudo instead of the setuid/setgid binaries? "ping" would be ...
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How to do a privileges escalation with ping?

I am trying to achieve a privilege escalation. I have a virtual machine on Linux and I escaped from an rbash terminal. I have now a "normal" user terminal. My user is not in the sudoers file. Is it ...
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Privilege escalation modifying cookie

I have two accounts, an administrator and a simple user. I can capture the administrator's cookie and use it in a simple user request, I find myself logged in with the administrator user and then log ...
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