Detecting Privilege Escalation Attempts

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Threat hunting for T1068-style privilege escalation
• Triaging EDR/SIEM alerts on suspicious privilege changes
• Scoping compromise during incident response
• Validating detection coverage in a purple team exercise

Example prompts

• “/detecting-privilege-escalation-attempts”

Requirements

• Python 3

Workflow steps

7 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

1. 1Formulate Hypothesis: Define a testable hypothesis based on threat intelligence or ATT&CK gap analysis.
2. 2Identify Data Sources: Determine which logs and telemetry are needed to validate or refute the hypothesis.
3. 3Execute Queries: Run detection queries against SIEM and EDR platforms to collect relevant events.
4. 4Analyze Results: Examine query results for anomalies, correlating across multiple data sources.
5. 5Validate Findings: Distinguish true positives from false positives through contextual analysis.
6. 6Correlate Activity: Link findings to broader attack chains and threat actor TTPs.
7. 7Document and Report: Record findings, update detection rules, and recommend response actions.

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 54a7988. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Ships 2 files in scripts/ (Python), which the agent can run.

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  No URLs in SKILL.md.

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Detecting Privilege Escalation Attempts loads about 922 tokens when it runs, and up to ~2.4k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 111 tokens; SKILL.md has 303 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~111

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~922

With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them

~2.4k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); the scripts in this folder are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills at commit 54a7988, republished under its Apache-2.0 licence (© mukul975). 303 words, ~922 tokens.

name

detecting-privilege-escalation-attempts

description

Detect privilege escalation attempts across Windows and Linux, including access token manipulation, UAC bypass, unquoted service path abuse, kernel exploits, and sudo/doas abuse. Use when threat hunting for T1068-style privilege escalation, triaging EDR/SIEM alerts on suspicious privilege changes, scoping compromise during incident response, or validating detection coverage in a purple team exercise.

domain

cybersecurity

subdomain

threat-hunting

tags

threat-hunting, mitre-attack, privilege-escalation, token-manipulation, uac-bypass, proactive-detection

version

1.0

author

mahipal

license

Apache-2.0

d3fend_techniques

Token Binding, Executable Denylisting, Execution Isolation, Restore Access, Reissue Credential

nist_csf

DE.CM-01, DE.AE-02, DE.AE-07, ID.RA-05

mitre_attack

T1046, T1057, T1082, T1083, T1068

Hunt ID: TH-DETECT-[DATE]-[SEQ]
Technique: T1134
Host: [Hostname]
User: [Account context]
Evidence: [Log entries, process trees, network data]
Risk Level: [Critical/High/Medium/Low]
Confidence: [High/Medium/Low]
Recommended Action: [Containment, investigation, monitoring]

© mukul975, Apache-2.0. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 7 other files (scripts, references, assets) in skills/detecting-privilege-escalation-attempts of mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills.

• SKILL.md
• LICENSE
• assets/template.md
• references/api-reference.md
• references/standards.md
• references/workflows.md
• scripts/agent.py
• scripts/process.py

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 54a7988