Vertical Privilege Escalation refers to:

• A. Gaining higher privileges within the same account
• B. Accessing files of another account
• C. Copying itself to MBR
• D. Demanding ransom

Answer: (A)

Vertical privilege escalation is when an attacker who already has access to a system increases their privilege level within the same user context, turning a limited-privilege user into an administrator or root. It relies on exploiting a vulnerability, misconfiguration, or weak access controls to elevate rights without creating a new account or breaking into a different user’s space. For example, abusing a flawed sudo configuration or a service permission to run with elevated rights, or exploiting a token/privilege flaw in an operating system. The other scenarios describe different patterns: accessing files belonging to another account is horizontal escalation (same level, different account), copying itself to the MBR is malware persistence, and demanding ransom is ransomware activity. Therefore, gaining higher privileges within the same account best matches vertical privilege escalation.