CAPEC-234: Hijacking a privileged process
An adversary gains control of a process that is assigned elevated privileges in order to execute arbitrary code with those privileges. Some processes are assigned elevated privileges on an operating system, usually through association with a particular user, group, or role. If an attacker can hijack this process, they will be able to assume its level of privilege in order to execute their own code.
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Overview
CAPEC-234 (Hijacking a privileged process) is a standard-level attack pattern catalogued by MITRE in the Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC). It describes a recurring method attackers use to exploit software weaknesses.
How the attack works
The phases an attacker typically follows to carry out this attack.
- Step 1Explore
[Find process with elevated priveleges] The adversary probes for processes running with elevated privileges.
- On Windows, use the process explorer's security tab to see if a process is running with administror privileges.
- On Linux, use the ps command to view running processes and pipe the output to a search for a particular user, or the root user.
- Step 2Experiment
[Find vulnerability in running process] The adversary looks for a vulnerability in the running process that would allow for arbitrary code execution with the privilege of the running process.
- Look for improper input validation
- Look for a buffer overflow which may be exploited if an adversary can inject unvalidated data.
- Utilize system utilities that support process control that have been inadequately secured
- Step 3