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Windows Privilege Escalation Walkthrough

This walkthrough teaches you how to methodically enumerate a Windows system from an assumed breach and identify common privilege escalation opportunities.

Intermediate
36m

Created by John Tear

Last Updated Jan 30, 2026

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  • Course

Windows Privilege Escalation Walkthrough

This walkthrough teaches you how to methodically enumerate a Windows system from an assumed breach and identify common privilege escalation opportunities.

Intermediate
36m

Created by John Tear

Last Updated Jan 30, 2026

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What you'll learn

Learn to solve common problems faced during penetration tests and OSCP-style labs: having low-privileged access but no clear path to full system compromise. In this course, Windows Privilege Escalation Walkthrough, you will learn how to identify and exploit common Windows privilege escalation weaknesses from an assumed breach scenario. First, you will explore how to enumerate a Windows host for common privilege escalation opportunities, identifying services, scheduled tasks, startup locations, file and registry permissions, and user artifacts that may introduce security weaknesses. Next, you will discover how common misconfigurations can lead to privilege escalation vulnerabilities. Finally, you will learn how to safely exploit these issues in a controlled lab environment while maintaining a clear, repeatable methodology. By the end of the course, you will have the skills and knowledge required to reliably escalate privileges on Windows systems and understand how these common weaknesses could be mitigated in real environments.

Windows Privilege Escalation Walkthrough
Intermediate
36m
Table of contents

About the author
John Tear - Pluralsight course - Windows Privilege Escalation Walkthrough
John Tear
7 courses 0.0 author rating 0 ratings

John Tear is a seasoned offensive security specialist with over two decades of dedicated experience in the field of IT security and 7 years in cybersecurity. Possessing the coveted OSCE3 certification, John is a recognized authority in the UK civil nuclear sector at identifying vulnerabilities, exploiting those vulnerabilities, and helping defenders to protect their infrastructure.

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