Editing Privilege escalation (section)

{{Short description|Gaining control of computer privileges beyond what is normally granted}}
[[File:Privilege Escalation Diagram.svg|thumb|A diagram describing privilege escalation.  The arrow represents a [[rootkit]] gaining access to the kernel, and the little gate represents normal privilege elevation, where the user has to enter an Administrator username and password.]]
'''Privilege escalation''' is the act of exploiting a [[Software bug|bug]], a [[Product defect|design flaw]], or a configuration oversight in an [[operating system]] or [[software application]] to gain elevated access to [[resource (computer science)|resources]] that are normally protected from an application or [[user (computing)|user]]. The result is that an application or user with more [[privilege (computing)|privileges]] than intended by the [[programmer|application developer]] or [[system administrator]] can perform [[Authorization|unauthorized]] actions.