Privilege Escalation

This report provides a concise primer on privilege escalation: what it is, how attackers achieve it (vertical/horizontal escalation, credential theft, vulnerability and misconfiguration exploitation, token manipulation, and social engineering), its potential impacts (data exfiltration, operational disruption, reputational damage, persistence), and recommended defenses (least privilege, strong authentication, vulnerability management, continuous monitoring, network segmentation, endpoint protection). It concludes with a brief description of Arctic Wolf’s managed detection, response, and advisory services for mitigating privilege escalation risks.