Summary

In this chapter, we covered how an attacker can escalate privileges inside the domain. We started our conversation with deadly exploits that grant the highest privileges in the blink of an eye. Regular patching and vulnerability management can help to mitigate this attack vector. Next, we looked at various ACL abuses against domain objects. We reviewed the most common privilege escalation paths, accompanied by practical examples. Special attention was paid to GPO abuse, as Group Policies can be deployed throughout the domain, providing an attacker with lateral movement, privilege escalation, and persistence opportunities all at once. We also discussed built-in domain groups that can be used for privilege escalation if a member of a such group has been compromised. Lastly, we looked at privilege escalation through trust relationships between child and parent domains. Also, briefly, we touched upon the PAM trust theme and possible misconfigurations that could ruin the whole ESAE...