Individual skill
detecting-privilege-escalation-attempts
Detect privilege escalation attempts including token manipulation, UAC bypass, unquoted service paths, kernel exploits, and sudo/doas abuse across Windows and Linux.
internal/tools/skills/data/threat-hunting/detecting-privilege-escalation-attempts/SKILL.md
Source commit d42f381ad34843e71a42658e5c57290c713e85af
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- Observed behavior
- Instructions only
- Last checked
- Nov 9, 2026
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- Repository last updated
- Nov 9, 2026
- License
- Apache-2.0
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- cybersecurity Repository topic
- security Repository topic
- bug-bounty Repository topic
- automation Repository topic
- autonomous-pentesting Repository topic
- ai-agent Repository topic
- ai-security Repository topic
- ethical-hacking Repository topic
- golang Repository topic
- penetration-testing Repository topic
- threat-hunting Declared skill tag
- mitre-attack Declared skill tag
- privilege-escalation Declared skill tag
- token-manipulation Declared skill tag
- uac-bypass Declared skill tag
- proactive-detection Declared skill tag
- security Derived category
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SKILL.mdcore · 4,709 bytes
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# Detecting Privilege Escalation Attempts
## When to Use
- When proactively hunting for indicators of detecting privilege escalation attempts in the environment
- After threat intelligence indicates active campaigns using these techniques
- During incident response to scope compromise related to these techniques
- When EDR or SIEM alerts trigger on related indicators
- During periodic security assessments and purple team exercises
## Detection Gaps & Validation
- **Token manipulation barely logs:** T1134 SeDebugPrivilege/`DuplicateTokenEx` abuse rarely emits a clean Security EID — rely on Sysmon EID 10 (ProcessAccess to a higher-integrity PID with `0x1410`/`0x1FFFFF`) plus 4688 with `TokenElevationType = %%1937` (full token). If 4688 command-line auditing is off, the escalation is invisible.
- **UAC-bypass blind spots:** fodhelper/computerdefaults/eventvwr leave no UAC consent event (4673/4674 are noisy and usually disabled) — hunt Sysmon EID 12/13 on `HKCU\...\ms-settings\shell\open\command` and EID 1 where these auto-elevate binaries spawn cmd/powershell.