Lateral Movement: How Adversaries Traverse Your Environment

Definition

Lateral movement is the set of techniques adversaries use to pivot from an initial foothold to additional systems and identities, expanding access until they reach high‑value assets. It exploits trust relationships, misconfigurations, and credentials to quietly turn one compromised endpoint into a widespread breach.

In practical terms, one phished workstation can become a help‑desk jump box, then a file server, then an identity provider. Attackers chain built‑in tools (e.g., sc.exe, wmic, ssh) with stolen tokens to ride existing admin workflows. This often happens in minutes, during business hours, producing logs that resemble routine maintenance.

Why it matters

In real incidents, lateral movement is the turning point from a contained intrusion into business impact. Attackers reuse tokens, abuse remote administration tools, and ride normal workflows to avoid detection—often within minutes. For growth companies with evolving IT, small gaps in identity or segmentation can translate into rapid blast‑radius expansion.

Consider a SaaS startup where engineers share local admin passwords across lab laptops. A single malware alert dismissed as "false positive" leads to SMB share crawling, credential dumping, and scripted data collection from build servers. By the time the EDR quarantine triggers, the actor has staged source code and API keys to an internal NAS for exfiltration.

Trends shaping risk

Cloud migration and remote work increase lateral paths: hybrid identities, VPN alternatives, and unmanaged devices expand the attack surface. SaaS and IDP integrations add token‑based trust chains; a single mis‑scoped grant can expose data across tenants. Flat VPCs and over‑permissive service roles accelerate spread.

Common patterns: personal devices connecting over split‑tunnel, contractors with wide subnet access, and serverless functions granted broad IAM roles. Cloud shells, bastion hosts, and self‑hosted runners become unmonitored bridges. Without identity‑aware Access Control and environment‑specific policies, east‑west movement becomes trivial.

Primary techniques

• Credential and token theft (LSASS scraping, browser stores, cloud tokens)
• Remote service abuse (SMB/WinRM/WMI/SSH, PsExec, scheduled tasks)
• Pass‑the‑Hash/Ticket and Kerberoasting; shadow admins and stale groups
• Living‑off‑the‑land tools and signed binaries to blend with admin activity

Narrative example: A user opens a phishing attachment. The payload avoids disk, dumps a browser session cookie, and calls internal Git over SSH to enumerate repos. It then uses wmic process call create to drop a loader on a nearby jump server, harvests cached domain credentials, and pivots via WinRM to a file server where finance exports are routinely stored.

Common targets

IT/engineering endpoints, jump servers, CI/CD runners, file servers, and identity tiering gaps. SMBs are exposed by shared local admin accounts and flat networks; regulated sectors face risk via legacy systems that cannot be easily segmented.

Sector examples: in healthcare, imaging workstations often trust PACS archives on broad VLANs; in fintech, batch processors and reporting DBs sit on the same security zone; in SaaS, staging and production VPCs may share peering links with permissive security groups for convenience.

Why defense is hard

Standard AV misses legitimate tools used maliciously. Over‑privileged accounts, shared credentials, and implicit network trust defeat simple rules. Best practices: enforce least privilege and tiered admin, rotate secrets, require phishing‑resistant MFA, and monitor identity anomalies alongside EDR.

Gaps to close: default domain groups that grant local admin, service accounts with unconstrained delegation, and golden images that ship with the same local password. On the signal side, collect PowerShell Script Block, Sysmon, and authentication telemetry; correlate failed then successful logons across hosts, especially when accompanied by service creation events.

Institutional/advanced solutions

Adopt zero‑trust segmentation, privilege elevation on demand, and strong Access Control. Combine EDR with identity threat detection, lateral path modeling, and Threat Intelligence to prioritize hunts. Use deception canaries on critical routes.

Practical stack: identity threat detection for token abuse, EDR rules for remote service invocation, path graphing to find shortest routes to domain admins, and microsegmentation that only allows known app‑to‑DB flows. Deception examples: fake admin credentials, honey‑shares, and canary service principals alert on misuse.

Actionable guidance

Map crown‑jewel paths, block legacy protocols, and enforce network micro‑segments with JIT admin. Add high‑signal detections for remote service abuse and token anomalies. Drill containment that disables compromised accounts and isolates segments quickly.

Start with a 2‑week sprint: inventory admin groups, rotate shared passwords, deny NTLM where possible, and baseline remote execution events. Next 30 days: segment file servers from workstations, restrict CI/CD runner access, and require passkeys for privileged users. Measure progress with reduced lateral routes and fewer write paths into crown‑jewel zones.

FAQ

What is lateral movement?

Lateral movement is the progression from the first compromised host to additional systems and identities, using trust and credentials to approach crown‑jewel assets without raising alarms.

What are early signs of lateral movement?

Unexpected remote service execution (WinRM, WMI, PsExec), new or transient admin group membership, token anomalies, sudden share enumeration, and RWX memory regions on endpoints.

Which tools do attackers commonly use?

Built‑in admin utilities such as sc.exe, wmic, schtasks, PowerShell remoting, SSH, and signed IT tools. These “living‑off‑the‑land” binaries blend into normal ops.

How do we slow or stop it quickly?

Enforce least privilege and tiered admin, segment east‑west traffic, revoke tokens on suspicion, and isolate segments. Require phishing‑resistant MFA for privileged access.

What telemetry helps most?

PowerShell Script Block, Sysmon process/network events, authentication logs (Kerberos/NTLM), remote service creation, and identity‑threat signals correlated over time.

What’s a practical first step this month?

Rotate shared local admin passwords, disable legacy protocols where feasible, restrict remote execution to managed admin hosts, and deploy canary credentials on critical paths.