hunting-windows-service-privilege-escalation SKILL.md skillA
hunting-windows-service-privilege-escalation from unboundcompute/security-agent-skills is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add unboundcompute/security-agent-skills/hunting-windows-service-privilege-escalation@git:20260908.e3ae18aPins git:20260908.e3ae18a in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- unboundcompute/security-agent-skills
- Path
skills/hunting-windows-service-privilege-escalation/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 1
- Latest version
- git:20260908.e3ae18a, committed Sep 8, 2026
- Size
- 10,136 bytes
- Repository stars
- 26
- License
- MIT
Hunt local privilege escalation through Windows service misconfiguration, where a low-privileged user can influence what a service runs as a higher-privileged account, through a weak service object permission, a writable service binary or its directory, an unquoted service path with a writable intervening directory, or a weak permission on the service's registry configuration. Use when reviewing installed services and their binaries, paths, and permissions on a Windows host for a…
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
# Hunting Windows service privilege escalation: when a standard user decides what SYSTEM runs A Windows service usually runs as a high-privileged account, often the local system account, and the service manager starts whatever binary the service configuration names. That is safe only if a low-privileged user cannot influence which binary runs or where it is found. When they can, the service becomes an escalation: the user changes the configured binary because the service object grants them that right, or replaces the binary because its file or directory is writable, or plants a file earlier on an unquoted path because an intervening directory is writable, or rewrites the service's registry configuration because its key is weakly permissioned. At the next start, the privileged account runs the attacker's code. The bug is not the service running as system; it is a standard user holding a write that reaches what system executes. You find these by listing services and asking, for each, whether a non-admin can change the binary, the path, or the config. ## When to use - A Windows host runs services as a privileged account and you can enumerate their config and permissions. …
Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add unboundcompute/security-agent-skills/hunting-windows-service-privilege-escalation@sha256:ca0d76e76d6750faThe line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260908.e3ae18a, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_kdpdxsd34gdp4qcx)
2 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 1 version of this file, committed on Sep 8, 2026.
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (10136 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
unboundcompute/security-agent-skills · 26 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-09-08 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_kdpdxsd34gdp4qcx GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=unboundcompute/security-agent-skills/hunting-windows-service-privilege-escalation GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/ca0d76e76d6750fa9a9c5dae9f91176b2dbace701fb180c17bc2aa6ea6743c89
Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.
Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.