I previously posted about breaking out of restrictive desktop environments to gain access to a CMD shell or acess to Powershell. However sometimes the environment is even tighter, for example with Citrix environments you may not even be on a desktop but simply have an application exposed to you.
Many organisations “lock-down” their desktop environments to reduce the impact that malicious staff members and compromised accounts can have on the overall domain security. Many desktop restrictions can slow down an attacker but it’s often possible to “break-out” of the restricted environment. Both assessing and securing these desktop environments can be tricky, so I’ll run you through how I assess them here, highlight some of the tricks and the methodology that I use with the intention that both breakers and defenders can get a better look at their options.