Privilege escalation is the act of gaining elevated access to resources that are normally restricted. Vertical escalation involves moving from a lower-privileged account to a higher-privileged one (e.g., regular user to admin). Horizontal escalation involves accessing resources of other users at the same privilege level. Common techniques include exploiting software vulnerabilities, misconfigured permissions, SUID binaries, and kernel exploits. Privilege escalation is a critical phase in penetration testing and a key security concern.
Cybersecurity