In this blog, we'll examine how threat actors—often referred to as hackers—can escalate privileges when weak file, directory, or registry permissions are present.
Many programs disable directory inheritance or assign excessive permissions to user accounts, leading to vulnerabilities. Finding these misconfigurations can be challenging, as it involves reviewing extensive file, directory, and registry hive permissions that are often overlooked. Fortunately, I have a few scripts that help detect and report these vulnerabilities and can also reset permissions to their secure defaults. But first, let’s dive into the problem at hand...
The Risks
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"Improperly configured permissions for files, directories, and registry entries often create significant vulnerabilities that threat actors can exploit to escalate privileges or break out of restricted environments. When permissions are inadequately set, threat actors can gain access to or modify sensitive files, ultimately providing a pathway for unauthorized actions.
Weak permissions enable unauthorized users to write and execute programs in specific directories or modify registry application paths, allowing them to redirect these paths to malicious locations. This redirection enables threat actors to inject and run their own code, giving them access to sensitive information or control over existing applications and files.
Beyond simply executing programs, insecure directory permissions also allow unauthorized modification of file permissions. This level of access can be used to alter or delete important files or to introduce new files containing harmful code.
Finally, these weak permissions open doors for attackers to leverage vulnerabilities within the operating system or its applications, allowing further access to the system. Additionally, unquoted paths and services with insufficient security configurations provide additional avenues for exploitation, allowing attackers to execute unauthorized commands and compromise system integrity."
What to do....
Manually validating permissions across the operating system can be a slow and tedious process. After discovering some critical permission issues and recognizing the importance of thorough validation, I began developing a script for automated validation and pentesting. This script is available for download on GitHub, with all relevant links provided at the bottom of the page.
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