πŸ†˜Cheatsheet

Windows - Privilege Escalation

Summary

Tools

Windows Version and Configuration

User Enumeration

Network Enumeration

Antivirus Enumeration

Default Writeable Folders

EoP - Looting for passwords

SAM and SYSTEM files

HiveNightmare

LAPS Settings

Search for file contents

Search for a file with a certain filename

Search the registry for key names and passwords

Passwords in unattend.xml

Wifi passwords

Sticky Notes passwords

Passwords stored in services

Passwords stored in Key Manager

Powershell History

Powershell Transcript

Password in Alternate Data Stream

EoP - Processes Enumeration and Tasks

EoP - Incorrect permissions in services

EoP - Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

EoP - Unquoted Service Paths

EoP - $PATH Interception

EoP - Named Pipes

EoP - Kernel Exploitation

EoP - AlwaysInstallElevated

EoP - Insecure GUI apps

EoP - Evaluating Vulnerable Drivers

EoP - Printers

Universal Printer

Bring Your Own Vulnerability

EoP - Runas

EoP - Abusing Shadow Copies

EoP - From local administrator to NT SYSTEM

EoP - Living Off The Land Binaries and Scripts

EoP - Impersonation Privileges

Restore A Service Account's Privileges

Meterpreter getsystem and alternatives

RottenPotato (Token Impersonation)

Juicy Potato (Abusing the golden privileges)

Rogue Potato (Fake OXID Resolver))

EFSPotato (MS-EFSR EfsRpcOpenFileRaw))

EoP - Privileged File Write

DiagHub

UsoDLLLoader

WerTrigger

WerMgr

EoP - Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures

MS08-067 (NetAPI)

MS10-015 (KiTrap0D)

MS11-080 (adf.sys)

MS15-051 (Client Copy Image)

MS16-

MS17-010 (Eternal Blue)

CVE-2019-

EoP - $PATH Interception

References

To o l s

PowerSploit's PowerUp

Watson - Watson is a (.NET 2.0 compliant) C# implementation of Sherlock

(Deprecated) Sherlock - PowerShell script to quickly find missing software patches for local

privilege escalation vulnerabilities

BeRoot - Privilege Escalation Project - Windows / Linux / Mac

Windows-Exploit-Suggester

windows-privesc-check - Standalone Executable to Check for Simple Privilege Escalation

Vectors on Windows Systems

WindowsExploits - Windows exploits, mostly precompiled. Not being updated.

WindowsEnum - A Powershell Privilege Escalation Enumeration Script.

Seatbelt - A C# project that performs a number of security oriented host-survey "safety

checks" relevant from both offensive and defensive security perspectives.

Powerless - Windows privilege escalation (enumeration) script designed with OSCP labs

(legacy Windows) in mind

JAWS - Just Another Windows (Enum) Script

winPEAS - Windows Privilege Escalation Awesome Script

Windows Exploit Suggester - Next Generation (WES-NG)

PrivescCheck - Privilege Escalation Enumeration Script for Windows

Windows Version and Configuration

Extract patchs and updates

Architecture

List all env variables

List all drives

User Enumeration

Get current username

List user privilege

List all users

List logon requirements; useable for bruteforcing

Get details about a user (i.e. administrator, admin, current user)

List all local groups

Get details about a group (i.e. administrators)

Get Domain Controllers

Network Enumeration

List all network interfaces, IP, and DNS.

List current routing table

List the ARP table

List all current connections

List all network shares

SNMP Configuration

Antivirus Enumeration

Enumerate antivirus on a box with WMIC /Node:localhost

/Namespace:\root\SecurityCenter2 Path AntivirusProduct Get displayName

Default Writeable Folders

EoP - Looting for passwords

SAM and SYSTEM files

The Security Account Manager (SAM), often Security Accounts Manager, is a database file. The

user passwords are stored in a hashed format in a registry hive either as a LM hash or as a NTLM

hash. This file can be found in %SystemRoot%/system32/config/SAM and is mounted on

HKLM/SAM.

Generate a hash file for John using pwdump or samdump2.

Either crack it with john -format=NT /root/sam.txt, hashcat or use Pass-The-Hash.

HiveNightmare

CVE-2021–36934 allows you to retrieve all registry hives (SAM,SECURITY,SYSTEM) in

Windows 10 and 11 as a non-administrator user

Check for the vulnerability using icacls

Then exploit the CVE by requesting the shadowcopies on the filesystem and reading the hives

from it.

LAPS Settings

Extract HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft Services\AdmPwd from Windows Registry.

LAPS Enabled: AdmPwdEnabled

LAPS Admin Account Name: AdminAccountName

LAPS Password Complexity: PasswordComplexity

LAPS Password Length: PasswordLength

LAPS Expiration Protection Enabled: PwdExpirationProtectionEnabled

Search for file contents

Also search in remote places such as SMB Shares and SharePoint:

Search passwords in SharePoint: nheiniger/SnaffPoint (must be compiled first, for

referencing issue see: https://tinyurl.com/28xlvo33/pull/6)

Search passwords in SMB Shares: SnaffCon/Snaffler

Search for a file with a certain filename

Search the registry for key names and passwords

Passwords in unattend.xml

Location of the unattend.xml files.

Display the content of these files with dir /s *sysprep.inf *sysprep.xml *unattended.xml

*unattend.xml *unattend.txt 2>nul.

Example content

Unattend credentials are stored in base64 and can be decoded manually with base64.

The Metasploit module post/windows/gather/enum_unattend looks for these files.

IIS Web config

Other files

Wifi passwords

Find AP SSID

Get Cleartext Pass

Oneliner method to extract wifi passwords from all the access point.

Sticky Notes passwords

The sticky notes app stores it's content in a sqlite db located at C:\Users\

\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftStickyNotes_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalSt

ate\plum.sqlite

Passwords stored in services

Saved session information for PuTTY, WinSCP, FileZilla, SuperPuTTY, and RDP using

SessionGopher

Passwords stored in Key Manager

⚠️ This software will display its output in a GUI

Powershell History

Disable Powershell history: Set-PSReadlineOption -HistorySaveStyle SaveNothing.

Powershell Transcript

Password in Alternate Data Stream

EoP - Processes Enumeration and Tasks

What processes are running?

Which processes are running as "system"

Do you have powershell magic?

List installed programs

List services

Enumerate scheduled tasks

Startup tasks

EoP - Incorrect permissions in services

A service running as Administrator/SYSTEM with incorrect file permissions might allow EoP.

You can replace the binar y, restar t the ser vice and get system.

Often, services are pointing to writeable locations:

Orphaned installs, not installed anymore but still exist in startup

DLL Hijacking

PATH directories with weak permissions

Alternatively you can use the Metasploit exploit :

Note to check file permissions you can use cacls and icacls

icacls (Windows Vista +)

  • Find-PathDLLHijack PowerUp.ps

  • Process Monitor : check for "Name Not Found"

  • For x64 compile with: "x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc windows_dll.c -shared -o output.dll"

  • For x86 compile with: "i686-w64-mingw32-gcc windows_dll.c -shared -o output.dll"

cacls (Windows XP)

You are looking for BUILTIN\Users:(F)(Full access), BUILTIN\Users:(M)(Modify access) or

BUILTIN\Users:(W)(Write-only access) in the output.

Example with Windows 10 - CVE-2019-1322 UsoSvc

Prerequisite: Service account

Example with Windows XP SP1 - upnphost

If it fails because of a missing dependency, try the following commands.

Using accesschk from Sysinternals or accesschk-XP.exe - github.com/phackt

EoP - Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

Te c h n i q u e b o r rowe d f ro m Warlockobama's tweet

With root privileges Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) allows users to create a bind shell

on any port (no elevation needed). Don't know the root password? No problem just set the

default user to root W/ .exe --default-user root. Now start your bind shell or reverse.

Binary bash.exe can also be found in C:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_microsoft-windows-

lxssbash_[...]\bash.exe

Alternatively you can explore the WSL filesystem in the folder

9rhkp1fndgsc\LocalState\rootfs\

EoP - Unquoted Service Paths

The Microsoft Windows Unquoted Service Path Enumeration Vulnerability. All Windows services

have a Path to its executable. If that path is unquoted and contains whitespace or other

separators, then the service will attempt to access a resource in the parent path first.

Metasploit exploit : exploit/windows/local/trusted_service_path

PowerUp exploit

Example

For C:\Program Files\something\legit.exe, Windows will try the following paths first:

EoP - $PATH Interception

Requirements:

PATH contains a writeable folder with low privileges.

The writeable folder is before the folder that contains the legitimate binary.

EXAMPLE:

Because (in this example) "C:\Program Files\nodejs" is before "C:\WINDOWS\system32" on the

PATH variable, the next time the user runs "cmd.exe", our evil version in the nodejs folder will

run, instead of the legitimate one in the system32 folder.

EoP - Named Pipes

1. Find named pipes: [System.IO.Directory]::GetFiles("\.\pipe")

2. Check named pipes DACL: pipesec.exe <named_pipe>

3. Reverse engineering software

4. Send data throught the named pipe : program.exe >\.\pipe\StdOutPipe

EoP - Kernel Exploitation

List of exploits kernel : [https://tinyurl.com/24sucrsp)

#Security Bulletin #KB #Description #Operating System

MS17-017 [KB4013081] [GDI Palette Objects Local Privilege Escalation] (windows

7/8)

CVE-2017-8464 [LNK Remote Code Execution Vulnerability] (windows

10/8.1/7/2016/2010/2008)

CVE-2017-0213 [Windows COM Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability] (windows

10/8.1/7/2016/2010/2008)

CVE-2018-0833 [SMBv3 Null Pointer Dereference Denial of Service] (Windows 8.1/Server

2012 R2)

CVE-2018-8120 [Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability] (Windows 7 SP1/

SP2,2008 R2 SP1)

MS17-010 [KB4013389] [Windows Kernel Mode Drivers] (windows

7/2008/2003/XP)

MS16-135 [KB3199135] [Windows Kernel Mode Drivers] (2016)

MS16-111 [KB3186973] [kernel api] (Windows 10 10586 (32/64)/8.1)

MS16-098 [KB3178466] [Kernel Driver] (Win 8.1)

MS16-075 [KB3164038] [Hot Potato] (2003/2008/7/8/2012)

MS16-034 [KB3143145] [Kernel Driver] (2008/7/8/10/2012)

MS16-032 [KB3143141] [Secondary Logon Handle] (2008/7/8/10/2012)

MS16-016 [KB3136041] [WebDAV] (2008/Vista/7)

MS16-014 [K3134228] [remote code execution] (2008/Vista/7)

...

MS03-026 [KB823980] [Buffer Overrun In RPC Interface] (/NT/2000/XP/2003)

To c ro s s c o m p i l e a p ro g r a m f ro m K a l i , u s e t h e fo l l ow i n g c o m m a n d.

EoP - AlwaysInstallElevated

Check if these registry values are set to "1".

Then create an MSI package and install it.

Te c h n i q u e a l s o ava i l a b l e i n :

Metasploit : exploit/windows/local/always_install_elevated

PowerUp.ps1 : Get-RegistryAlwaysInstallElevated, Write-UserAddMSI

EoP - Insecure GUI apps

Application running as SYSTEM allowing an user to spawn a CMD, or browse directories.

Example: "Windows Help and Support" (Windows + F1), search for "command prompt", click on

"Click to open Command Prompt"

EoP - Evaluating Vulnerable Drivers

Look for vuln drivers loaded, we often don't spend enough time looking at this:

Living Off The Land Drivers is a curated list of Windows drivers used by adversaries to

bypass security controls and carry out attacks. The project helps security professionals stay

informed and mitigate potential threats.

Native binary: DriverQuery.exe

matterpreter/OffensiveCSharp/DriverQuery

EoP - Printers

Universal Printer

Create a Printer

Execute the driver

PrinterNightmare

Bring Your Own Vulnerability

Concealed Position : https://tinyurl.com/2bvl5yz3

ACIDDAMAGE - CVE-2021-35449 - Lexmark Universal Print Driver LPE

RADIANTDAMAGE - CVE-2021-38085 - Canon TR150 Print Driver LPE

POISONDAMAGE - CVE-2019-19363 - Ricoh PCL6 Print Driver LPE

SLASHINGDAMAGE - CVE-2020-1300 - Windows Print Spooler LPE

EoP - Runas

Use the cmdkey to list the stored credentials on the machine.

Then you can use runas with the /savecred options in order to use the saved credentials.

The following example is calling a remote binary via an SMB share.

Using runas with a provided set of credential.

EoP - Abusing Shadow Copies

If you have local administrator access on a machine try to list shadow copies, it's an easy way for

Privilege Escalation.

EoP - From local administrator to NT SYSTEM

EoP - Living Off The Land Binaries and Scripts

Living Off The Land Binaries and Scripts (and also Libraries) : https://tinyurl.com/y6ct9yf9

The goal of the LOLBAS project is to document every binary, script, and library that can be

used for Living Off The Land techniques.

A LOLBin/Lib/Script must:

Be a Microsoft-signed file, either native to the OS or downloaded from Microsoft. Have extra

"unexpected" functionality. It is not interesting to document intended use cases. Exceptions

are application whitelisting bypasses

Have functionality that would be useful to an APT or red team

EoP - Impersonation Privileges

Full privileges cheatsheet at https://tinyurl.com/2cv7an8v summary below will only list direct

ways to exploit the privilege to obtain an admin session or read sensitive files.

Privilege Impact To o l Execution path Remarks

SeAssignPrimaryToken Admin

3rd party

tool

"It would allow a user

to impersonate tokens

and privesc to nt

system using tools

such as potato.exe,

rottenpotato.exe and

juicypotato.exe"

Thank you AurΓ©lien Chalot

for the update. I will try to

re-phrase it to something

more recipe-like soon.

  • May be more interesting

if you can read

%WINDIR%\MEMORY.DMP

  • SeBackupPrivilege

SeBackup Threat Built-in

commands

Read sensitve files

with robocopy /b

(and robocopy) is not

helpful when it comes to

open files.

  • Robocopy requires both

SeBackup and SeRestore

to work with /b parameter.

SeCreateToken Admin

3rd party

tool

Create arbitrary token

including local admin

rights with

NtCreateToken.

SeDebug Admin PowerShell

Duplicate the

lsass.exe token.

Script to be found at

FuzzySecurity

SeLoadDriver Admin

3rd party

tool

1. Load buggy kernel

driver such as

szkg64.sys or

2. Exploit the driver

vulnerability

Alternatively, the

privilege may be used

to unload security-

related drivers with

ftlMC builtin

command. i.e.: fltMC

1. The szkg64

vulnerability is listed as

CVE-2018-15732

2. The szkg64

code was created by

Parvez Anwar

SeRestore Admin PowerShell

1. Launch

PowerShell/ISE with

the SeRestore

privilege present.

2. Enable the privilege

with Enable-

SeRestorePrivilege).

3. Rename utilman.exe

to utilman.old

4. Rename cmd.exe to

utilman.exe

Attack may be detected by

some AV software.

Alternative method relies

on replacing service

binaries stored in

"Program Files" using the

same privilege.

Restore A Service Account's Privileges

This tool should be executed as LOCAL SERVICE or NETWORK SERVICE only.

5. Lock the console

and press Win+U

SeTakeOwnership Admin

Built-in

commands

1. takeown.exe /f

2. icalcs.exe

3. Rename cmd.exe to

utilman.exe

4. Lock the console

and press Win+U

Attack may be detected by

some AV software.

Alternative method relies

on replacing service

binaries stored in

"Program Files" using the

same privilege.

SeTcb Admin

3rd party

tool

Manipulate tokens to

have local admin

rights included. May

require

SeImpersonate.

To b e ve r i f i e d.

Meterpreter getsystem and alternatives

RottenPotato (Token Impersonation)

Binary available at : foxglovesec/RottenPotato and breenmachine/RottenPotatoNG

Exploit using Metasploit with incognito mode loaded.

Juicy Potato (Abusing the golden privileges)

If the machine is >= Windows 10 1809 & Windows Server 2019 - Try Rogue Potato

If the machine is < Windows 10 1809 < Windows Server 2019 - Try Juicy Potato

Binary available at : ohpe/juicy-potato

1. Check the privileges of the service account, you should look for SeImpersonate and/or

SeAssignPrimaryToken (Impersonate a client after authentication)

2. Select a CLSID based on your Windows version, a CLSID is a globally unique identifier that

identifies a COM class object

Windows 7 Enterprise

Windows 8.1 Enterprise

Windows 10 Enterprise

Windows 10 Professional

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise

Windows Server 2012 Datacenter

Windows Server 2016 Standard

3. Execute JuicyPotato to run a privileged command.

Rogue Potato (Fake OXID Resolver)

Binary available at antonioCoco/RoguePotato

EFSPotato (MS-EFSR EfsRpcOpenFileRaw)

Binary available at https://tinyurl.com/23dbbqvr

JuicyPotatoNG

antonioCoco/JuicyPotatoNG

EoP - Privileged File Write

DiagHub

⚠️ Starting with version 1903 and above, DiagHub can no longer be used to load arbitrary

DLLs.

The Microsoft Diagnostics Hub Standard Collector Service (DiagHub) is a service that collects

trace information and is programmatically exposed via DCOM. This DCOM object can be used to

load a DLL into a SYSTEM process, provided that this DLL exists in the C:\Windows\System32

directory.

Exploit

1. Create an evil DLL e.g: payload.dll and move it into C:\Windows\System32

2. Build https://tinyurl.com/2xlyyjuz

3. diaghub.exe c:\ProgramData\ payload.dll

The default payload will run C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color\nc.exe -lvp 2000 -

e cmd.exe

Alternative tools:

https://tinyurl.com/2b7rwrc6

https://tinyurl.com/2dfj95aj

UsoDLLLoader

⚠️ 2020-06-06 Update: this trick no longer works on the latest builds of Windows 10

Insider Preview.

An alternative to the DiagHub DLL loading "exploit" found by James Forshaw (a.k.a.

@tiraniddo)

If we found a privileged file write vulnerability in Windows or in some third-party software, we

could copy our own version of windowscoredeviceinfo.dll into C:\Windows\Sytem32\ and

then have it loaded by the USO service to get arbitrary code execution as NT

AUTHORITY\System.

Exploit

1. Build https://tinyurl.com/29rz3v7r

Select Release config and x64 architecure.

Build solution.

DLL .\x64\Release\WindowsCoreDeviceInfo.dll

Loader .\x64\Release\UsoDllLoader.exe.

2. Copy WindowsCoreDeviceInfo.dll to C:\Windows\System32\

3. Use the loader and wait for the shell or run usoclient StartInteractiveScan and

connect to the bind shell on port 1337.

WerTrigger

Exploit Privileged File Writes bugs with Windows Problem Reporting

1. Clone https://tinyurl.com/269v4hov

2. Copy phoneinfo.dll to C:\Windows\System32\

3. Place Report.wer file and WerTrigger.exe in a same directory.

4. Then, run WerTrigger.exe.

5. Enjoy a shell as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM

WerMgr

Exploit Privileged Directory Creation Bugs with Windows Error Reporting

Metasploit modules to exploit EternalRomance/EternalSynergy/EternalChampion.

If you can't use Metasploit and only want a reverse shell.

CVE-2019-1388

Exploit : https://tinyurl.com/26vn372z

Requirement:

Windows 7

Windows 10 LTSC 10240

Failing on :

LT S C 2 0 1 9

1709

1803

Detailed information about the vulnerability : https://tinyurl.com/svj5y3v

References

icacls - Docs Microsoft

Privilege Escalation Windows - Philip Linghammar

Windows elevation of privileges - Guifre Ruiz

The Open Source Windows Privilege Escalation Cheat Sheet by amAK.xyz and @xxByte

Basic Linux Privilege Escalation

Windows Privilege Escalation Fundamentals

TOP–10 ways to boost your privileges in Windows systems - hackmag

The SYSTEM Challenge

Windows Privilege Escalation Guide - absolomb's security blog

Chapter 4 - Windows Post-Exploitation - 2 Nov 2017 - dostoevskylabs

Remediation for Microsoft Windows Unquoted Service Path Enumeration Vulnerability -

September 18th, 2016 - Robert Russell

Pentestlab.blog - WPE-01 - Stored Credentials

Pentestlab.blog - WPE-02 - Windows Kernel

Pentestlab.blog - WPE-03 - DLL Injection

Pentestlab.blog - WPE-04 - Weak Service Permissions

Pentestlab.blog - WPE-05 - DLL Hijacking

Pentestlab.blog - WPE-06 - Hot Potato

Pentestlab.blog - WPE-07 - Group Policy Preferences

Pentestlab.blog - WPE-08 - Unquoted Service Path

Pentestlab.blog - WPE-09 - Always Install Elevated

Pentestlab.blog - WPE-10 - Token Manipulation

Pentestlab.blog - WPE-11 - Secondary Logon Handle

Pentestlab.blog - WPE-12 - Insecure Registry Permissions

Pentestlab.blog - WPE-13 - Intel SYSRET

Alternative methods of becoming SYSTEM - 20th November 2017 - Adam Chester @ xpn

Living Off The Land Binaries and Scripts (and now also Libraries)

Common Windows Misconfiguration: Services - 2018-09-23 - @am0nsec

Local Privilege Escalation Workshop - Slides.pdf - @sagishahar

Abusing Diaghub - xct - March 07, 2019

Windows Exploitation Tricks: Exploiting Arbitrary File Writes for Local Elevation of Privilege -

James Forshaw, Project Zero - Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Weaponizing Privileged File Writes with the USO Service - Part 2/2 - itm4n - August 19,

2019

Hacking Trick: Environment Variable $Path Interception y Escaladas de Privilegios para

Windows

Abusing SeLoadDriverPrivilege for privilege escalation - 14 JUN 2018 - OSCAR MALLO

Universal Privilege Escalation and Persistence – Printer - AUGUST 2, 2021)

ABUSING ARBITRARY FILE DELETES TO ESCALATE PRIVILEGE AND OTHER GREAT TRICKS

  • March 17, 2022 | Simon Zuckerbraun

Bypassing AppLocker by abusing HashInfo - 2022-08-19 - Ian

Giving JuicyPotato a second chance: JuicyPotatoNG - @decoder_it, @splinter_code

IN THE POTATO FAMILY, I WANT THEM ALL - @BlWasp_

Potatoes - Windows Privilege Escalation - Jorge Lajara - November 22, 2020

This is a offline tool, your data stays locally and is not send to any server!

Feedback & Bug Reports

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