Post Exploitation
In most cases, when we exploit certain services for our purposes to gain access to the system, we usually do not obtain the highest possible privileges. Because services are typically configured in a certain way "isolated" to stop potential attackers, bypassing these restrictions is the next step we take in this stage. However, it is not always easy to escalate the privileges. After gaining in-depth knowledge about how these operating systems function, we must adapt our techniques to the particular operating system and carefully study how Linux Privilege Escalation and Windows Privilege Escalation work.
At this stage of the penetration test, we already have access to the exploited machine and ensure that we still have access to it even if modifications and changes are made. During this phase, we may try to escalate our privileges to obtain the highest possible rights and hunt for sensitive data such as credentials or other data that the client is concerned with protecting (pillaging). Sometimes we perform post-exploitation to demonstrate to a client the impact of our access. Other times we perform post-exploitation as an input to the lateral movement process described next.
Source HTB Academy
Possible paths after this step
| Path | Description |
|---|---|
Information Gathering / Pillaging | Before we can begin escalating privileges, we must first get an overview of the inner workings of the exploited system. After all, we do not know which users are on the system and what options are available to us up to this point. This step is also known as Pillaging. This path is not optional, as with the others, but essential. Again, entering the Information Gathering stage puts us in this perspective. This inevitably takes us to the vulnerability assessment stage, where we analyze and evaluate the information we find. |
Exploitation | Suppose we have found sensitive information about the system and its' contents. In that case, we can use it to exploit local applications or services with higher privileges to execute commands with those privileges. |
Lateral Movement | From here, we can also skip directly over to Lateral Movement. This can come under different conditions. If we have achieved the highest privileges on a dual-homed system used to connect two networks, we can likely use this host to start enumerating hosts that were not previously available to us. |
Proof-of-Concept | We can take the last path after gaining the highest privileges by exploiting an internal system. Of course, we do not necessarily have to have taken over all systems. However, if we have gained the Domain Admin privileges in an Active Directory environment, we can likely move freely across the entire network and perform any actions we can imagine. So we can create the Proof-of-Concept from our notes to detail and potentially automate the paths and activities and make them available to the technical department. |
Source HTB Academy
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