Introduction to Windows PE

The general goal of Windows privilege escalation is to further our access to a given system to a member of the Local Administrators group or the NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM LocalSystem account.

1.	When testing a client’s gold image Windows workstation and server build for flaws
2.	To escalate privileges locally to gain access to some local resource such as a database
3.	To gain NT AUTHORITY\System level access on a domain-joined machine to gain a foothold into the client’s Active Directory environment
4.	To obtain credentials to move laterally or escalate privileges within the client’s network

Windows systems present a vast attack surface. Just some of the ways that we can escalate privileges are:

Abusing Windows group privileges	Abusing Windows user privileges
Bypassing User Account Control	Abusing weak service/file permissions
Leveraging unpatched kernel exploits	Credential theft
Traffic Capture	and more.

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Tools Spotted:

•  Snaffler
•  secretsdump.py
• Juicy Potato
• SeImpersonatePrivilege
• xp_cmdshell stored procedure

  xfreerdp /v:10.129.43.36 /u:htb-student