Penetration Testing mailing list archives

Re: priviledge escalation techniques


From: Pieter Danhieux <pdanhieux () easynet be>
Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 20:36:13 +0100


On 22 Jan 2005, at 09:20, Eyal Udassin wrote:

Hi,

The easiest way to perform privilege escalation on windows, whatever
version, is to list the executables in the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run registry
key. All of these executables are run under SYSTEM.

Once you get hold of that list, see if you have write permissions to replace the original executable with your own. Don't forget to execute the original from your code, or otherwise you may cause the system to become unstable.

I had a client which had such a key pointing to an old printer installation
utility which no longer existed, in an unprotected directory outside of
"program files". That was the beginning of the end of the pentest :-)

If all the files can't be overridden, try to boot with command line only and replace them. Another approach is to remove the hard drive and perform the
switch on another computer, with the victim HD as a secondary drive.

Eyal Udassin - Swift Coders
POB 1596 Ramat Hasharon, 47114
972+547-684989
eyal () swiftcoders com - www.swiftcoders.com

Or you can use a linux live cd that supports NTFS read/write operations. If have already tested KANOTIX and the captive-ntfs filesystem (which used the windows drivers to read/write on ntfs)

regards

--
Pieter Danhieux, CISSP, GSEC


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