In simpler terms, privilege escalation means gaining access to something that should not be available. To get access to illegal resources, attackers employ a variety of privilege escalation strategies. Because online invasions are typically simply the first stage of a sophisticated assault, privilege escalation is a major problem for web application security. Malicious actors frequently employ web assaults to get basic access to certain resources before moving on to privilege escalation attacks to gain more control. The final purpose might be to get access to sensitive data, install malware, introduce dangerous code, or even takeover single or numerous computer systems.
There are two kinds of privilege escalation: horizontal escalation and vertical escalation.
Web Security Horizontal Privilege Escalation
The phrase horizontal privilege escalation refers to any circumstance in which an attacker assumes the identity of a certain user and acquires access to resources belonging to another user with a comparable degree of access. For example, horizontal privilege escalation occurs when an attacker impersonates a user and gets illegal access to their bank account.
Many online vulnerabilities have the potential to result in horizontal privilege escalation. Cross-site Scripting (XSS) assaults, for example, may allow the attacker to steal the user’s session cookies in order to get access to their user account. Horizontal privilege escalation is also demonstrated via CSRF attacks.
Web Security Vertical Privilege Escalation
Privilege elevation is another term for vertical privilege escalation. It applies to any circumstance in which the attacker obtains greater rights, most commonly root privileges (administrative privileges).
Privilege elevation is frequently used as the second stage of an attack. If the attack is directed directly at the webserver, the malicious user will frequently attempt to get file system and/or console access first. After gaining shell access to the webserver, they may try different methods to get access to a privileged account, most often the system administrator. In this situation, local privilege escalation frequently relies on misconfigurations or unpatched operating systems. Both Microsoft Windows and Linux/UNIX have known vulnerabilities that allow attackers to acquire administrator access by running arbitrary code.
Privilege escalation vulnerabilities can occur for a variety of reasons, including:
- Programming faults include flaws that can lead to web assaults as well as other vulnerabilities like buffer overflow.
- Misconfigurations: These are especially dangerous when the concept of least privilege is ignored and ordinary users have much too many privileges.
- Delays in patching and updating the operating system and other software are examples of poor security hygiene.
- Weak access control, such as weak passwords.
- Social engineering: Attackers may acquire access to accounts by taking advantage of trusting people.
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