Windows Privilege Escalation

The Microsoft Windows operating system (OS) is popular among individual users and companies for their employees. There is a lot to cover about privilege escalation on the Windows OS. This chapter covers the following topics: how to enumerate the Windows operating system; how to transfer files into Windows while in a limited shell; Windows kernel exploits; exploiting Windows services; Windows GUI exploitation; and privilege escalation automation tools. To exploit the system for privilege escalation, penetration testers will need to understand the operating system details. For either Linux or Windows operating systems, testers will need to transfer files into the target host, especially when they have to deal with a kernel exploit. The chapter covers most of the scenarios for a successful file transfer from source to destination. The kernel is the core of the operating system. Once the penetration testers exploit the kernel, then they have complete ownership of the system.