Also known as: privesc · local privilege escalation · LPE · elevation of privilege
Privilege escalation is the act of exploiting a flaw or misconfiguration to gain a higher level of access than originally granted, such as moving from an unprivileged user account to administrator or root.
Escalation is described as vertical when moving to a higher privilege level (user to root) and horizontal when moving sideways to another account at the same level (one user's data to another's). Vertical escalation is the more commonly discussed of the two.
Privilege escalation is usually the second step of an intrusion rather than the first. An attacker gains some initial low-privilege foothold — a phished credential, a compromised web application — and then chains an escalation flaw to reach the access level they actually need.
Remote Code Execution
Remote code execution (RCE) is a class of vulnerability that allows an attacker to run arbitrary code on a target system over a network, without physical access to that machine.
Lateral Movement
Lateral movement is the process by which an attacker who has compromised one system moves through a network to reach additional systems, typically hunting for higher-value data or credentials.
Exploit
An exploit is code or a technique that takes advantage of a specific vulnerability to cause unintended behaviour, such as executing attacker-supplied code, bypassing authentication, or crashing a service.
Kernel
The kernel is the core of an operating system, responsible for managing memory, scheduling processes, and mediating all access between software and hardware. The Linux kernel is the component that makes a system 'Linux'.
Zero Trust
Zero trust is a security architecture that removes implicit trust based on network location, requiring every request to be authenticated, authorised, and continuously validated regardless of whether it originates inside or outside the corporate network.