privilege escalation

Privilege escalation turns a small foothold into full control. Learn the types, how attackers do it, and the controls that limit the damage.

Privilege escalation rarely needs a clever exploit. Most real cases trace back to one boring, forgotten access right that nobody ever took back.

The Certighost AD CS privilege escalation bug will get patched. The Windows default that made it possible, an unreviewed machine account quota, will not fix itself.

A local Windows Defender vulnerability, CVE-2026-50656, let any logged-in user reach SYSTEM for nearly 29 days before Microsoft shipped a fix.