Jax watched the code scroll. Unlike standard vertical privilege escalation , where an attacker jumps from a user to an admin, this update created a "phantom" tier. It allowed any service running under NSSM224 to inherit the permissions of the kernel itself, bypassing the standard security checks .
Even with quoted paths, NSSM 2.18 through 2.24 sometimes inherit weak ACLs (Access Control Lists) on the registry key: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MyService nssm224 privilege escalation updated
Real-world breach reports (e.g., from Red Canary & Mandiant 2024) show that attackers still use NSSM-based persistence to elevate from IIS APPPOOL or LOCAL SERVICE to SYSTEM . Jax watched the code scroll