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
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Formulate Hypothesis: Define a testable hypothesis based on threat intelligence or ATT&CK gap analysis.
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Identify Data Sources: Determine which logs and telemetry are needed to validate or refute the hypothesis.
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Execute Queries: Run detection queries against SIEM and EDR platforms to collect relevant events.
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Analyze Results: Examine query results for anomalies, correlating across multiple data sources.
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Validate Findings: Distinguish true positives from false positives through contextual analysis.
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Correlate Activity: Link findings to broader attack chains and threat actor TTPs.
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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
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Scenario 1: Potato exploit for SYSTEM token impersonation
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Scenario 2: Fodhelper.exe UAC bypass technique
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Scenario 3: PrintSpoofer privilege escalation from service to SYSTEM
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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]
