LPELocal Privilege Escalation
Definition
Vulnerability that lets a user with local access (shell, regular user) elevate privileges — typically to root/SYSTEM. Critical in multi-tenant and post-compromise scenarios.
An LPE is exploited AFTER getting access to the system. Vectors: kernel race conditions (Dirty COW, DirtyDecrypt), suid binaries with unvalidated arguments, vulnerable drivers, misconfigured capabilities, container escapes.
It's not RCE but is often chained: 1) unauthenticated RCE → www-data shell → 2) LPE → root → 3) persistence.
CVSS for LPE rarely hits 9: it requires prior access (PR:Low or PR:High), which lowers the score. But in realistic threat modelling, a root LPE on a Linux server is game over for that host.