vulnerability-chaining

Vulnerability Chaining (the team lead)

Overview

Individual findings undersell real risk. Attackers don't stop at one bug — they chain them: an info leak feeds an enumeration, which feeds an auth bypass, which reaches admin. This skill takes the register from all FIND/EXPLOIT specialists and assembles attack paths.

Core principle: Chain impact is multiplicative, not additive. Three "Mediums" that connect can equal one "Critical." Severity belongs to the path, not the isolated bug.

⚠️ Authorization

Demonstrate chains only on your own/authorized non-prod instance. Prove the path with the minimum steps; stop at proof of impact — no persistence, no real-data exfiltration, no pivoting to systems out of scope.

Method

1. Inventory primitives — re-read every finding as a capability, not a label:
   • Info (enumeration, verbose errors, leaked ids/secrets, source maps)
   • Foothold (any auth bypass, XSS, SSRF, upload)
   • Escalation (IDOR→admin, privesc, mass assignment)
   • Pivot (SSRF→metadata, leaked key→cloud, token reuse)
2. Find adjacencies — output of one bug = precondition of another? (leaked email → no-rate-limit login → ATO; reflected XSS → steals admin session → admin IDOR).
3. Build the path — order primitives start→goal (unauth → user → admin → data/RCE).
4. Demonstrate safely — walk the chain end-to-end on staging, capturing each hop's PoC.
5. Score the chain — rate by the final impact, then list the constituent bugs.

See references/attack-paths.md for canonical chain templates.

Quick reference — high-value chains

Chain	Path
Full account takeover	user enumeration → no rate limit → weak reset/JWT → ATO
XSS → admin compromise	stored XSS → steal admin cookie → admin BFLA → mass data
SSRF → cloud takeover	SSRF → 169.254.169.254 metadata → IAM creds → cloud API
IDOR → privesc	IDOR leaks admin id/email → password reset on admin → admin access
Upload → RCE	unrestricted upload → web-accessible path → execute → shell
Logic → fraud	coupon race → negative balance → withdraw → financial loss

Output

One narrative per chain: the attack path (numbered hops), the constituent finding IDs, the end impact in business terms, and the single point where breaking the chain stops it (the cheapest fix). This is what makes leadership act.

Hand-off

Findings come from all specialists; chains go to pentest-reporting as your top criticals, and to security-hardening highlighting the cheapest chain-breaking fix.

Common mistakes

• Reporting bugs in isolation — you'll under-rate the real risk and the chain gets ignored.
• Building theoretical chains — each hop must be demonstrated, not assumed.
• Over-running the chain — stop at proven impact; don't persist or pivot out of scope.
• Missing the cheapest break — often one mid-chain fix kills several paths at once.