BC privilege-escalation-methods
Provide comprehensive techniques for escalating privileges from a low-privileged user to root/administrator access on compromised Linux and Windows systems. Essential for penetration testing post-exploitation phase and red team operations.
Provide comprehensive techniques for escalating privileges from a low-privileged user to root/administrator access on compromised Linux and Windows systems.
As a process C 59/100 · Has gaps — weak spots: result and completion, when it triggers, progress reporting
The same skill appears in 2 more places: agentic-awesome-skills, agentic-awesome-skills
What is at stake
Medium-severity findings: the skill is probably honest, but read what alarmed the scanner.
Below is the worst case for this category. The finding here is medium: the guard saw a sign, not a proof.
The skill contains commands that delete files, rewrite disks or execute code fetched from the network. The agent may run them without asking if it believes the instructions require it.
Replace destructive commands with safe equivalents that ask for confirmation, scope them to one folder, and stop piping curl into a shell: pin a version and a checksum.
Below is the worst case for this category. The finding here is medium: the guard saw a sign, not a proof.
The instructions or scripts send data out: environment variables, keys, file contents, chat history. You may never notice, because the agent performs the upload as "part of the task".
If the upload is not needed for the task, remove it: catalogs flag such skills and delist them. If it is needed, name the destination explicitly, say what leaves the machine, and give the user a switch.
How to improve
- Your own cases (evals/evals.json, 4–6 real requests with expected answers): the full check would then run those instead of a model-drafted suite.
- A spec.yaml with trigger phrases and assertions — a behaviour contract for CI; `skilltest init` writes a template.
Guard findings · 12
✓ No critical or high findings
Medium and low: 12
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medium Dangerous commands
cmd-persistenceSKILL.md:75Persistence mechanism (cron / launchd / scheduled task / autorun registry) (documentation of a security skill)cat /etc/crontab
security skill -
medium Exfiltration
exfil-read-secret-filesSKILL.md:98Reads credential / secret files (documentation of a security skill)/usr/bin/tar -cvf key.tar /root/.ssh/id_rsa
security skill -
medium Dangerous commands
cmd-persistenceSKILL.md:225Persistence mechanism (cron / launchd / scheduled task / autorun registry) (documentation of a security skill)schtasks /create /S DOMAIN /SC Weekly /RU "NT Authority\SYSTEM" `
security skill -
low Risky intent
intent-offensive-securitySKILL.md:3Offensive-security / dual-use content (legitimate for authorised testing; review intended use) (quoted — discussed, not commanded)description: "Provide comprehensive techniques for escalating privileges from a low-privileged user to root/administrator access on compromised Linux and Windows systems. Essential for penetration tes
quoted -
low Risky intent
intent-offensive-securitySKILL.md:24Offensive-security / dual-use content (legitimate for authorised testing; review intended use)# Privilege Escalation Methods
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low Risky intent
intent-offensive-securitySKILL.md:28Offensive-security / dual-use content (legitimate for authorised testing; review intended use)Provide comprehensive techniques for escalating privileges from a low-privileged user to root/administrator access on compromised Linux and Windows systems. Essential for penetration testing post-expl
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low Risky intent
intent-offensive-securitySKILL.md:33Offensive-security / dual-use content (legitimate for authorised testing; review intended use)- Kali Linux or penetration testing distribution
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low Risky intent
intent-offensive-securitySKILL.md:49Offensive-security / dual-use content (legitimate for authorised testing; review intended use)### Linux Privilege Escalation
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low Dangerous commands
cmd-privilegeSKILL.md:63Privilege escalation / world-writable permissions (documentation of a security skill)sudo python -c 'import pty;pty.spawn("/bin/bash")'security skill
A further 3 matches are quotations in this security skill's documentation and are not counted as findings.
Files scanned: 1. Evidence is masked. Grey chips explain why severity was lowered.
Against the Agent Skills spec
- note
frontmatter-keyunknown frontmatter key "risk" - note
frontmatter-keyunknown frontmatter key "source" - note
frontmatter-keyunknown frontmatter key "date_added"
Process rating: all ten parameters 59/100
- 0Result and completion. Does not say what the result is
- 0Progress reporting. Says nothing while it works
- 20When it triggers. No condition that starts the skill
- 50Failures and branches. 0 branches, has a failure section
- 60Tools and files. Uses tools (bash) that frontmatter does not declare
- 70Inputs and preconditions. Inputs and preconditions are listed
- 100Steps. 22 steps
- 100Consistency. Name and required fields are in place
- 100Execution cost. Instruction body is 2179 tokens
- 100Running it twice. No mutating operations
- low 10 top-level sections: this looks like several domains in one skill
Everything here is measured from the skill text rather than judged by a model, so the numbers are checkable. A parameter weighs more when it is a more common reason for the process to stall.
Quality signals
- +5Description has no quoted example phrases that should trigger the skill
- +4Description does not say when NOT to use the skill (false activations)
- +3Output format is not stated: the model decides each time
- -4Absolute local paths (C:\Users, /home/…): not portable
- +1No license
- +2Single-language instructions
- +3Description length 239: enough signal without eating the budget
- +4Structure: 35 headings
- +3Step-by-step instructions: 22 items
- +4Has examples (20 code blocks)
Quality base 70; lint remarks subtract, signals add up to 100. Result: 77.