privilege escalation
termsecurityhacking
Turning limited access into greater access, ideally administrator or root.
Attackers rarely land where they want to be; privilege escalation is the step from a foothold to real control. "Vertical" gains higher rights on one host; "horizontal" (lateral movement) spreads sideways to other accounts or machines. Least privilege exists to make this step hard.
Also known as: privesc, priv-esc, escalation of privilege, lateral movement