POTATO

[xorpal]

Back in 2015, when the French cybersecurity firm QuarksLab discovered a critical vulnerability in Windows authentication. The vulnerability was related to the handling of Kerberos packets in Windows Server 2008 R2 and earlier operating systems.

The exploit leveraged the vulnerability by actively impersonating the certification authority (CA) within a compromised Windows domain. This allowed an attacker to gain full admin access to domain servers, completely bypassing any existing authentication mechanisms.

QuarksLab publicly disclosed this vulnerability on a technical blog and provided a proof-of-concept (PoC) demonstrating the effectiveness of the attack. However, the team also stated that they would not release the PoC source code or any tool based on it to the public.

However, shortly after the disclosure of the vulnerability, some hacker groups began developing their own tools based on QuarksLab's PoC. One of these tools was named "Potato" due to its POC-TA-TO (Proof Of Concept - Take A Ticket On) acronym, referring to the passive nature of the attack. The Potato exploit implemented a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack within a compromised Windows domain and allowed an attacker to gain full admin access.

Unfortunately, the Kerberos vulnerability exploited by Potato cannot be easily fixed with a simple patch, as it is rooted in the protocol's architecture itself. As a result, Windows users are still vulnerable to this type of attack today, although a group policy-based solution has been made available.

BUT

The Potato exploit, also known as the Privilege Escalation Through DLL Hijacking, was discovered by a researcher named Stephane van Gulick in 2011. This exploit leverages DLL hijacking to escalate privileges on Windows systems, giving an attacker administrative access to the target machine. The name "Potato" comes from the idea that the exploit uses a technique where it tricks Windows into thinking the attacker is a trusted system service, such as the "LSA" (Local Security Authority) process.

SO

Remember, folks: always keep your Windows systems up to date and patched - otherwise, you might end up with a potato in your network!

 

[eariel]

sweet potato

​

 

[s0crates]

Ive already gotten off to it 4 times, I am warming up for number 5

 

[FlowerBasket96]

confused