PenTest+ PT0-002 Exam Questions and Answers PDF

When the penetration tester has NOPASSWD privileges to run vi as root, the quickest way to escalate privileges is to leverage vi to execute a shell. The command sudo vi -c ':!bash' opens vi as the root user and immediately spawns a shell within vi. This method is fast and effective because vi (or vim) has the capability to run shell commands.

Executing sudo vi -c ':!bash' will open vi and then immediately run the :!bash command, which spawns a Bash shell with root privileges.

References:

GTFOBins - vi

Example from penetration testing reports where vi is used to escalate privileges: Writeup​​.

To understand and exploit the vulnerability causing the server application to crash or remain stable after opening several simultaneous connections, the best approach is to attach a remote debugger to the application. This allows the penetration tester to monitor the application’s behavior in real-time without affecting the stability of the testing environment. Establishing a large number of connections to the server and sending fixed packets of data simultaneously can help to reproduce the issue consistently, which is crucial for identifying the cause of the crashes. Analyzing the application's response and debugging data will provide insights into potential buffer overflow, race conditions, or other vulnerabilities.

References:

Effective Debugging Techniques

Fuzz Testing and Debugging

The taskkill command is used in Windows to terminate tasks by process ID (PID) or image name (IM). The correct command to terminate a specified process and any child processes which were started by it uses the /T flag, and the /F flag is used to force terminate the process. Therefore, taskkill /PID /T /F is the correct syntax to terminate the endpoint protection software and its child processes.

The other options listed are either incorrect syntax or do not accomplish the task of terminating the child processes:

•/IM specifies the image name but is not necessary when using /PID.

•/S specifies the remote system to connect to and /U specifies the user context under which the command should execute, neither of which are relevant to terminating processes.

•There is no /P flag in the taskkill command.