Before we dive in too deep, let‘s level-set. What exactly is privilege escalation, and why should you care?
In simple terms, privilege escalation is when an attacker compromises an account and then exploits vulnerabilities to gain increased permissions allowing them to access more systems and data.
Escalation turns a basic intrusion into a potential catastrophe, handing attackers the keys to the kingdom. Much like a petty thief slipping past distracted lobby security to sneak into the executive suite, from there they can access sensitive systems and data assets.
And like most cyber intrusions, the threat continues to grow. According to the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), privilege escalation attacks have risen over 31% annually since 2019. And a recent SANS survey reports that 67% of organizations suffered privilege escalation events just last year.
Clearly, restraint of elevated privileges is no longer optional. So let‘s unpack the who, what, and how of escalation to equip you with the knowledge to fight back…
External Hackers and Insiders All Crave Escalation
While shadowy outsiders dominate news headlines,privilege escalation exploits know no boundaries. Both external threat groups and malicious insiders covet elevated permissions. Some common sources of escalation attempts include:
Foreign Adversaries – State-sponsored hackers like Cozy Bear, Venomous Bear and Dragonfly scour antivirus definitions searching for new local privilege escalation vectors in popular enterprise software. Their goal is to handicap defenses in preparation for cyberwarfare.
Organized Cybercriminals – Holding systems hostage for profit remains incredibly lucrative. Syndicates like REvil seek admin-level access to encrypt files, destroy backups and exfiltrate sensitive records to harm victims that resist ransom demands.
Hacktivists – Socio-political groups like Anonymous hijack privileges to tamper with websites and web apps as acts of disruption towards causes they oppose rather than monetary gain. Their digital sit-ins draw attention to perceived social injustices.
Malicious Insiders – Among today‘s escalation offenders, insider threats present unique challenges. Entitled employees abuse entrusted powers for vengeance over passed promotions. Auditors overstep in hunting for dirt during assessments. DevOps engineers cover failed updates by wiping logs. Their privilege misuse flies under the radar since access starts out legitimate.
Regardless of motive though, consequences prove serious…
When Escalation Occurs, Major Damage Typically Ensues
Once escalated, attackers gain free rein to inch closer and closer to crown jewels while masking the breadcrumbs of their actions. Typical targets at enterprises include:
Customer/HR Databases – What better jackpot than troves of personal and financial information primed for identity fraud or resale on the dark web? Escalation provides direct access to this sensitive PII data.
Source Code Repositories – Why just steal data when you can swipe the source code,blueprints of immensely valuable intellectual property, altogether? Breaches at ElcomSoft and Cloudinary demonstrate what‘s at stake.
Email Platforms – What better way to silently spy on communications, extrapolate future plans, launch secondary attacks and destroy reputation than by taking over internal email systems? SolarWinds illustrated this vividly through extensive post-compromise email monitoring.
Cloud Infrastructure – Enterprises invest heavily in cloud platforms and SaaS apps to drive digital transformation, placing many mission-critical workloads and datasets into these hosted services. But convenient cloud access mechanisms like AWS IAM roles and service tokens prime targets for escalation too.
Active Directory – As the gateway which provisions access across on-premises and cloud environments, breaching AD unlocks the full suite of resources at an organization‘s disposal. So naturally it remains priority target #1.
In each case above, abusing lifted permissions led to lasting impacts ranging from sudden outages disrupting operations, irrecoverable destruction of backups rendering data unrecoverable and exfiltration of sensitive records violating compliance mandates.
Clearly, mastering privilege requires getting into the mindset of adversaries and proactively safeguarding exactly what they covet most. Now let‘s get tactical…
Common Technical Approaches to Gaining Elevation
While scenarios differ, most cybercriminals use combinations of the following four technical approaches to pop initial shells and strengthen permissions over time:
1. Exploiting Vulnerabilities
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Remotely leveraging software flaws like command injections and buffer overflows to break out of application sandboxes into surrounding OS.
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Chaining together smaller flaws in one platform to exploit vulnerabilities deeper in the software stack.
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Taking advantage of platforms like scripting engines with over 15,000+ CVEs to test endless privilege promotion permutations.
2. Abusing Insecure Designs
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Accessing networks segments without strict compartmentalization allows attackers to laterally traverse to higher value targets.
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Coding apps to run with excessive permissions passed down from developers that inherited god-like credentials from IT through legacy means like domain admins groups.
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Hooking up disaster recovery and backup systems using the same admin rights as production servers provides attackers backup door access when hunting for crypto keys.
3. Stealing & Cracking Credentials
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Installing password dumping tools like Mimikatz once breaching any standard user account in order to harvest credentials handles from memory.
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Capturing VPN and RADIUS authentication attempts containing usernames and passwords in the clear if improperly secured during transmission over the network between endpoint and authentication server.
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Brute forcing and stuffing stolen passwords hashes, bought from prior breach corpuses circulating the dark web, into authentication portals.
4. Exploiting Trusts & Supply Chains
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Hopping from a breached partner‘s compromised account to a connected organization without sufficient access controls and activity monitoring between contractual partnerships.
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Embedding backdoors and Trojans into open source libraries and commercial software leveraged by targets midway through the development pipeline.
While no silver bullet exists to fully eliminate exploitation avenues, restricting unnecessary access, promptly patching, validating inputs, monitoring anomalous behavior and securing credentials blocks most run-of-the-mill escalation attempts.
But as long as determined human attackers adapt new techniques, additional layers of protection remain essential…
9 Core Strategies for Restricting Privileges
Beating back privilege escalation requires shrinking your attack surface, monitoring traffic patterns closely, and enforcing least privilege rigorously across all your systems and accounts. Specifically, every organization should:
1. Establish Cross-Platform Privileged Access Management (PAM): Unify visibility and control over credentialed access by deploying a solution like ManageEngine, CyberArk or BeyondTrust. Strictly enforce multi-factor authentication, limit standing privileges and monitor session activity.
2. Normalize Hardened Security Configurations – Institute centralized configuration standards that align with CIS benchmarks across all assets. Continuously monitor for and remediate configuration drift through tools like Chef, Puppet and BMC BladeLogic to prevent misconfigurations.
3. Promptly Patch Critical Software – Prioritize patching known escalation vectors like remote code execution (RCE) and local file inclusion (LFI) vulnerabilities by deploying tools like Ivanti Security Controls and Automox. Sign up for access to pay-for-privilege zero day feeds.
4. Scrub All User-Supplied Inputs – Defend application layers against SQL injections, command injections, buffer overflows and other unexpected inputs using input validation libraries like python‘s wtforms and filtering helpers like string-sanitize to block unauthorized access attempts.
5. Detect Behavior Anomalies – Employ user entity behavior analytics (UEBA) to establish individual and peer baselines then flag abnormal shifts indicative of account misuse. Shut down detected threats fast with automated response playbooks.
6. Secure Credentials & Secrets – Centrally orchestrate and inject passwords using a secrets vault solution like HashiCorp Vault rather than relying on static configurations. Enable automatic rotation frequently alter privileged access credentials across all managed systems.
7. Review the Reviewers – Build checks and balances into access workflows by requiring approvals for privilege escalation. Audit all administrator entitlement reviews and activity via tools like SpaceCurve and Delinea to catch insiders overstepping bounds.
8. Compartmentalize Access – Adopt zero trust architecture with microsegmentation and on-demand privileged access paired with data masking controls that programmatically hide sensitive elements like PII to limit damage upon inevitable intrusions.
9. Coach Contextual Caution – Curtail careless privileged actions through embed training using tools like MediaPRO and PhishLine that reinforce protocol expectations matching duties, highlighting real examples of appropriate escalation.
Layering these controls limits both likelihood and blast radius of unauthorized privilege elevation, buying precious time to detect and contain inevitable incidents. Now let‘s explore 5 categories of security tools to further support your escalation eradication efforts…
5 Advanced Tools to Curb Privilege Creep
The following leading-edge technologies represent critical pillars of a defense-in-depth strategy against privilege escalation andLiving off the Land (LOTL) attacks:
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
PAM acts as command central for enforcing least privilege policies and auditing privileged user activity. Core capabilities include:
Multi-Factor Authentication – Adding factors like biometrics and one-time-passwords protects initial access to privileged credentials with additional verification checks, preventing compromise through basic password theft.
Session Management – Recording user actions provides full visibility and attribution during privileged sessions while features like session timeouts automatically revoke access when inactive for too long preventing dormant hijacking.
Password Management – Automating complex randomized password generation, retrieval and rotation routinely changes credential locks to privileged systems often enough to outpacy cracking attempts.
Authorization Workflows – Requiring manager approval for privilege escalation requests ensures peer oversight for expanding user entitlement creep while providing audit trails detailing exactly who authorized every escalation.
Leading solutions include CyberArk, BeyondTrust and Thycotic Secret Server. While effective, heavier PAM tools carry extensive deployment and administrative overheads. So alternatives like Managed Engine ADAudit Plus strike easier deployment balances through AD focus.
Vulnerability Management
Actively finding and remediating vulnerabilities that could allow malicious privilege increases remains imperative. Core capabilities include:
Asset Discovery – Maintaining ongoing inventory of everything communicating on networks despite constant change allows focusing scans only on authorized in-scope assets and noticing any emerging rogue systems early.
Vulnerability Scanning – Continuously probe environments for license and configuration issues as well as missing patches through engines fine-tuned to detect hard-to-find flaws that could enable write access and control hijacking.
Risk-Based Prioritization – With hundreds of potential vulnerabilities typically uncovered each scan, stacking ranked remediation plans by severity steers precious IT resources towards fixing flaws posing immediate privilege escalation risks first.
Compliance Reporting – Demonstrating reduced attack surface over time provides key evidence during annual audits that controls are working to limit escalation avenues mandated by regulatory standards like SOX and PCI DSS.
Top players include Tenable.io, Rapid7 InsightVM, Qualys VMDR and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps. Lightweight options like Nessus Essentials cater towards SMBs.
User & Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA)
By analyzing subtle user activity pattern deviations from individual baselines, UEBA serves as key indicator of credential compromise and insider misuse. Core capabilities include:
Statistical Profiling – Algorithmically build historical activity profiles encompassing behaviors like source IP addresses, access times, file manipulation actions and resource access patterns unique to each user and device.
Anomaly Detection – Apply statistical models comparing emerging actions against profiles to automatically surface highly improbable deviations indicative of account misuse for investigation.
Threat Hunting – Provide tools to isolate related suspicious behavioral chains, timeline suspicious events, review similar historical actions and quantify risk.
Automated Response – Once credential misuse detected, immediately lock down suspected accounts through integration with identity systems like Active Directory to stop attackers progressing further through hands-off remediation plays.
Leading solutions include Microsoft Azure AD Identity Protection, Gurucul, Exabeam Advanced Analytics and Securonix UEBA. Lightweight options like Sigma from recent upstart GrayLog lower barriers for SMB adoption.
Web Application Firewalls (WAFs)
While traditionally protecting externals, WAFs actively prevent malicious actors including those who achieve insider positioning through privilege escalation from exploiting trusting web apps to access and corrupt key backends like databases. Core capabilities include:
Input Validation – Scan all parameters submitted to web apps for signs of SQL injection, XSS, command injections, path transversals and other unexpected inputs trying to break out into foreign apps, databases and OS.
Rate Limiting – Restrict excessive identical input submissions often associated with automated weakness scanners and credential stuffers trying to brute force entry.
Virtual Patching – Until coding patches get applied, block known attacks targeting published vulnerabilities by their unique payloads signatures to prevent exploits.
Layer 7 DoS Protection – Filter excessive connection attempts, slow POST payloads and other HTTP non-compliance tactics aimed at crashing web server resources to open indirect privilege channels.
Leading WAF solutions include Imperva, Akamai, Cloudflare, Signal Sciences and Barracuda. Lightweight open source options like ModSecurity or NAXSI suit smaller businesses.
Deception Technology
Set decoys mimicking your actual credentials, data assets and admin tools to distract and detect attackers including inside ones focusing on privilege escalation. Core capabilities include:
High Interaction Lures – Fully-functional pop-up OS and service replicas like domain controllers, file servers and databases with seemingly legitimate but fake admin access act as ultimate honeypots for privilege seeking attackers.
Misinformation Seeding – Sprinkle bogus sensitive records into actual databases related to VIP identities, customer data and file repositories that get monitored extremely closely for any unauthorized touch, essentially landmine canaries.
Alert Tripping – Surface attackers manipulating seeded data or accessing decoys through red flag alarms bringing high probability threats to immediate incident responder focus for fastest containment.
Top deception tools include TrapX, Attivo, Cymmetria and Smokescreen. Budget options like CanaryTokens provide more limited but scalable honeypot capabilities.
Integrating these solutions provides overlapping protection to shrink attack windows. Now let‘s examine what proper implementation looks like…
An Escalation Resistant Architecture Takes Shape
Building enterprise resilience against privilege escalation requires aligning people, processes and technology controls to establish mutually-reinforcing defenses predicated on denying unnecessary access and continuously validating necessity:
Govern Access Justifications
Embed privilege review and re-approval workflows administered by business owners and security teams into periodic entitlement certifications through identity governance automation. Manage exceptions centrally.
Enforce Least Privilege
Right-size permissions through on-demand elevations via PAM tools while leveraging microsegmentation to compartmentalize access to minimize standing privileges.
Inspect All Actions
Ingest comprehensive logs into a SIEM dashboard with configured anomaly detection policies that trigger alerts prompting SOC investigation supported by UEBA context and deception decoy visibility.
Standardize Secure Configs
Define and continually assess benchmarks encompassing key privilege gateways like Active Directory, AWS IAM and Kubernetes RBAC against frameworks like CIS using continuous configuration monitoring.
Rationalize Standing Access
Prune unnecessary accounts/roles and legacy pathways through access certification reviews. Scrutinize service accounts, embedded roles definitions and application-to-database mappings enabling possible privilege chain exploits.
Educate Against Excess
Through periodic simulated attacks and embedded training, teach admins to use commands judiciously, recognize social engineering lures and report unusual requests on internal platforms so analytics better baseline normal.
By enlisting both automation and people power, this framework significantly raises adversary costs and containment speeds to combat privilege attacks. Now let‘s connect the dots on why this matters…
Closing Perspectives
Given increasing regulatory penalties now extending personal liability to executives for breaches involving compromised insider credentials, no organization can disregard privilege creep any longer.
Without controls ensuring separation of duties, routine entitlement reviews and least-privilege access models strictly enforced by technical policy guardrails, adversaries need only one set of compromised credentials before seizing king-like powers.
Use this guide as your blueprint for systematically addressing privilege risks by:
- Implementing core access governance processes centered upon entitlement transparency and accountability
- Augmenting identity systems with multi-layered monitoring, analytic and deception tools
- Fostering a culture focused on earning and maintaining trust through responsible privileged actions
Significant privilege escalation vulnerabilities assuredly lurk within your own environment’s gaps and blindspots right now. So steal a page from adversaries by proactively penetration testing current controls to spotlight deficiencies before attackers inevitably do.
Then make escalation extra difficult for them by enacting "secure enough access" founded upon necessity, transparency and accountability. Our shared organizations and customers will thank you!
Now, go lock it all down! I’m cheering you on.
