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Capec-234 Detail

Hijacking a privileged process

Standard Software Typical Severity: Medium

Parents: 233

Threats: T73 T281 T338 T387 T400

Description

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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Explore

  1. Find process with elevated priveleges: The adversary probes for processes running with elevated privileges.

    2. Techniques
    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.
Experiment

  1. 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.

    2. Techniques
    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
Exploit

  1. Execute arbitrary code: The adversary exploits the vulnerability that they have found and hijacks the running process.

  1. The targeted process or operating system must contain a bug that allows attackers to hijack the targeted process.
  1. None: No specialized resources are required to execute this type of attack.

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