detecting-privilege-escalation-attempts

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

Prerequisites

• EDR platform with process and network telemetry (CrowdStrike, MDE, SentinelOne)
• SIEM with relevant log data ingested (Splunk, Elastic, Sentinel)
• Sysmon deployed with comprehensive configuration
• Windows Security Event Log forwarding enabled
• Threat intelligence feeds for IOC correlation

Workflow

1. Formulate Hypothesis: Define a testable hypothesis based on threat intelligence or ATT&CK gap analysis.
2. Identify Data Sources: Determine which logs and telemetry are needed to validate or refute the hypothesis.
3. Execute Queries: Run detection queries against SIEM and EDR platforms to collect relevant events.
4. Analyze Results: Examine query results for anomalies, correlating across multiple data sources.
5. Validate Findings: Distinguish true positives from false positives through contextual analysis.
6. Correlate Activity: Link findings to broader attack chains and threat actor TTPs.
7. Document and Report: Record findings, update detection rules, and recommend response actions.

Key Concepts

Concept	Description
T1134	Access Token Manipulation
T1548.002	UAC Bypass
T1068	Exploitation for Privilege Escalation
T1574.009	Unquoted Service Path

Tools & Systems

Tool	Purpose
CrowdStrike Falcon	EDR telemetry and threat detection
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint	Advanced hunting with KQL
Splunk Enterprise	SIEM log analysis with SPL queries
Elastic Security	Detection rules and investigation timeline
Sysmon	Detailed Windows event monitoring
Velociraptor	Endpoint artifact collection and hunting
Sigma Rules	Cross-platform detection rule format

Common Scenarios

1. Scenario 1: Potato exploit for SYSTEM token impersonation
2. Scenario 2: Fodhelper.exe UAC bypass technique
3. Scenario 3: PrintSpoofer privilege escalation from service to SYSTEM
4. Scenario 4: CVE kernel exploit for local privilege escalation

Output Format

Hunt ID: TH-DETECT-[DATE]-[SEQ]
Technique: T1134
Host: [Hostname]
User: [Account context]
Evidence: [Log entries, process trees, network data]
Risk Level: [Critical/High/Medium/Low]
Confidence: [High/Medium/Low]
Recommended Action: [Containment, investigation, monitoring]