Access Tokens - HackTricks

# Access Tokens

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## Access Tokens

Each user logged onto the system holds an access token with security information for that logon session. The system creates an access token when the user logs on. Every process executed on behalf of the user has a copy of the access token. The token identifies the user, the user's groups, and the user's privileges. A token also contains a logon SID (Security Identifier) that identifies the current logon session.

You can see this information executing `whoami /all`

    whoami /all

    USER INFORMATION
    ----------------

    User Name             SID
    ===================== ============================================
    desktop-rgfrdxl\cpolo S-1-5-21-3359511372-53430657-2078432294-1001

    GROUP INFORMATION
    -----------------

    Group Name                                                    Type             SID                                                                                                           Attributes
    ============================================================= ================ ============================================================================================================= ==================================================
    Mandatory Label\Medium Mandatory Level                        Label            S-1-16-8192
    Everyone                                                      Well-known group S-1-1-0                                                                                                       Mandatory group, Enabled by default, Enabled group
    NT AUTHORITY\Local account and member of Administrators group Well-known group S-1-5-114                                                                                                     Group used for deny only
    BUILTIN\Administrators                                        Alias            S-1-5-32-544                                                                                                  Group used for deny only
    BUILTIN\Users                                                 Alias            S-1-5-32-545                                                                                                  Mandatory group, Enabled by default, Enabled group
    BUILTIN\Performance Log Users                                 Alias            S-1-5-32-559                                                                                                  Mandatory group, Enabled by default, Enabled group
    NT AUTHORITY\INTERACTIVE                                      Well-known group S-1-5-4                                                                                                       Mandatory group, Enabled by default, Enabled group
    CONSOLE LOGON                                                 Well-known group S-1-2-1                                                                                                       Mandatory group, Enabled by default, Enabled group
    NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users                              Well-known group S-1-5-11                                                                                                      Mandatory group, Enabled by default, Enabled group
    NT AUTHORITY\This Organization                                Well-known group S-1-5-15                                                                                                      Mandatory group, Enabled by default, Enabled group
    MicrosoftAccount\cpolop@outlook.com                           User             S-1-11-96-3623454863-58364-18864-2661722203-1597581903-3158937479-2778085403-3651782251-2842230462-2314292098 Mandatory group, Enabled by default, Enabled group
    NT AUTHORITY\Local account                                    Well-known group S-1-5-113                                                                                                     Mandatory group, Enabled by default, Enabled group
    LOCAL                                                         Well-known group S-1-2-0                                                                                                       Mandatory group, Enabled by default, Enabled group
    NT AUTHORITY\Cloud Account Authentication                     Well-known group S-1-5-64-36                                                                                                   Mandatory group, Enabled by default, Enabled group

    PRIVILEGES INFORMATION
    ----------------------

    Privilege Name                Description                          State
    ============================= ==================================== ========
    SeShutdownPrivilege           Shut down the system                 Disabled
    SeChangeNotifyPrivilege       Bypass traverse checking             Enabled
    SeUndockPrivilege             Remove computer from docking station Disabled
    SeIncreaseWorkingSetPrivilege Increase a process working set       Disabled
    SeTimeZonePrivilege           Change the time zone                 Disabled

or using Process Explorer from Sysinternals (select process and access"Security" tab):

### Local administrator

When a local administrator logins, two access tokens are created: One with admin rights and other one with normal rights. By default, when this user executes a process the one with regular (non-administrator) rights is used. When this user tries to execute anything as administrator ("Run as Administrator" for example) the UAC will be used to ask for permission.
If you want to learn more about the UAC read this page.

### Credentials user impersonation

If you have valid credentials of any other user, you can create a new logon session with those credentials :

    runas /user:domain\username cmd.exe

The access token has also a reference of the logon sessions inside the LSASS, this is useful if the process needs to access some objects of the network.
You can launch a process that uses different credentials for accessing network services using:

    runas /user:domain\username /netonly cmd.exe

This is useful if you have useful credentials to access objects in the network but those credentials aren't valid inside the current host as they are only going to be used in the network (in the current host your current user privileges will be used).

### Types of tokens

There are two types of tokens available:

- Primary Token: It serves as a representation of a process's security credentials. The creation and association of primary tokens with processes are actions that require elevated privileges, emphasizing the principle of privilege separation. Typically, an authentication service is responsible for token creation, while a logon service handles its association with the user's operating system shell. It is worth noting that processes inherit the primary token of their parent process at creation.
- Impersonation Token: Empowers a server application to adopt the client's identity temporarily for accessing secure objects. This mechanism is stratified into four levels of operation:
  - Anonymous: Grants server access akin to that of an unidentified user.
  - Identification: Allows the server to verify the client's identity without utilizing it for object access.
  - Impersonation: Enables the server to operate under the client's identity.
  - Delegation: Similar to Impersonation but includes the ability to extend this identity assumption to remote systems the server interacts with, ensuring credential preservation.

#### Impersonate Tokens

Using the incognito module of metasploit if you have enough privileges you can easily list and impersonate other tokens. This could be useful to perform actions as if you where the other user. You could also escalate privileges with this technique.

### Token Privileges

Learn which token privileges can be abused to escalate privileges:

Abusing Tokens

Take a look to all the possible token privileges and some definitions on this external page.

## References

Learn more about tokens in this tutorials: https://medium.com/@seemant.bisht24/understanding-and-abusing-process-tokens-part-i-ee51671f2cfa and https://medium.com/@seemant.bisht24/understanding-and-abusing-access-tokens-part-ii-b9069f432962

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> Support HackTricks
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