HELP - Escalate privilege in (well configured) Windows.

[DaKahuna]

If I am not mistaken the Helix server will need administrator privileges in order to run under Windows. As the OP does not have this, and is not able to boot from the live-CD either, Helix most likely will not provide any help.

No, most of the programs require Administrator priviliges but Helix will automatically run on being inserted into any Windows 2000, XP, Vista system that is set for autorun CD and can manually be started on those that are not configured with autorun.

But it will give you some additional tools and access that you do not get with the programs currently installed on the hardened Windows box.

[komseh]

No, most of the programs require Administrator priviliges but Helix will automatically run on being inserted into any Windows 2000, XP, Vista system that is set for autorun CD and can manually be started on those that are not configured with autorun.

But it will give you some additional tools and access that you do not get with the programs currently installed on the hardened Windows box.

Dude, he does not have access to the CD drive within windows.

To the OP: I'm surprised they didn't just give you a thinclient to break into, jeez. I think physically breaking into the case should be within the scope of the penetration test. If this were allowed what would you do to get past the drive encryption? Is safe mode disabled(I'm assuming it is)? If you could get into safe mode you may be able to bypass some of the CD/USB access controls.

[compaq]

I don't know much about this, but you might try to install a program in usermode that high jacks a system process and then trys to load a root kit.
Someones code I downloaded from govermentsecurity.com did the usermode bit(but didn't work), try that way.

www.rootkit.com