Attacks and malware
What is Privilege escalation?
Gaining higher permissions than an attacker started with, for example going from a normal user account to administrator or root.
Privilege escalation is any step that gives an attacker more rights than they had: from a standard user to local administrator, from a local admin to domain admin, or from a container to the host.
It happens through vulnerabilities, misconfigured permissions, weak service settings or stolen credentials of more powerful accounts. Most serious intrusions need it, because the attacker's goals usually require admin access.