Lateral movement represents one of the most persistent and damaging tactics used by threat actors once they gain a foothold inside a network. Rather than exploiting a single endpoint and exfiltrating data immediately, attackers who employ lateral movement techniques methodically traverse the network in search of valuable assets, such as domain controllers, privileged credentials, and sensitive data repositories.
This behavior is often difficult to detect because it mimics legitimate user activity, making it one of the preferred strategies in advanced persistent threats (APTs), ransomware operations, and insider compromise campaigns. To protect against these threats, security teams must understand how lateral movement works, what tools and techniques adversaries use, and how to monitor, detect, and contain such activity before it causes real damage.
What Is Lateral Movement?
In the post-compromise phase of an intrusion, lateral movement refers to the steps an attacker takes to explore a network and access additional systems or data beyond the initially breached asset. The attacker may pivot from system to system using stolen credentials, token reuse, or exploitation of weak internal services, such as SMB, RDP, or Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).
Unlike brute-force attacks or broad scanning activity, lateral movement is deliberate and often stealthy. It’s used to escalate privileges, locate critical systems, and gather intelligence about the network architecture—all while avoiding detection.
Common Techniques Used in Lateral Movement
Attackers rely on several tried-and-true methods to move across networks once initial access is gained. These techniques allow them to escalate privileges, access sensitive systems, and maintain stealth:
1. Pass-the-Hash (PtH)
This method uses stolen NTLM hashes to authenticate across systems without knowing the actual password. Attackers often dump hashes from memory and use tools like Mimikatz to replay them across trusted hosts.
2. Pass-the-Ticket (PtT)
By extracting Kerberos tickets from a compromised machine, attackers can impersonate legitimate users or services. Variants include Silver Ticket and Golden Ticket attacks, which provide either limited or broad access to resources across the domain.
3. Remote Code Execution with WMI or SMB
Using native tools like Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) or Server Message Block (SMB), attackers can execute commands and scripts on other machines. These channels are often overlooked because they are essential to legitimate administrative tasks.
4. Credential Dumping
Credentials stored in memory, especially within the LSASS process, are a prime target. Tools such as Mimikatz, ProcDump, or custom scripts can extract these credentials for use in lateral authentication attempts.
5. Living-off-the-Land Binaries (LOLBins)
Rather than introducing new executables, attackers use trusted tools already present on the system, such as PowerShell, PsExec, cmd.exe, or net.exe. This tactic reduces their visibility and helps them evade endpoint detection systems.
The Lateral Movement Lifecycle
Lateral movement tends to follow a predictable pattern that aligns with the cyber kill chain model:
1. Initial Access and Reconnaissance
Access is often achieved via phishing, unpatched vulnerabilities, or compromised credentials. Once inside, attackers begin mapping the network, looking for system names, trust relationships, domain structures, and shared resources.
2. Credential Harvesting
Attackers identify key accounts and attempt to extract cached credentials or tokens from memory. Domain admin credentials are a prime target.
3. Privilege Escalation
With valid credentials or tokens, attackers attempt to elevate their privileges, often through local exploit chaining or lateral movement toward domain controllers.
4. Lateral Propagation
The attacker accesses additional hosts, repeating the process to reach higher-value targets. Movement is typically achieved through RDP, PsExec, WMI, or direct exploitation of internal services.
5. Data Exfiltration or Impact
Once goals are met, be it data theft, network control, or ransomware deployment, the attacker performs final operations, often leaving persistence mechanisms in place.
Why Lateral Movement Is So Difficult to Detect
Security tools that focus only on north-south traffic (external to internal) often miss lateral movement, which occurs east-west inside the network. Fileless techniques, use of legitimate admin tools, and credential reuse complicate detection.
Attackers also tend to move slowly and strategically. On average, threat actors remain undetected for over 200 days in a compromised network: ample time to pivot, cover tracks, and identify weak points. Activity often resembles legitimate behavior, such as an IT admin using PsExec or a user accessing shared resources, which makes anomaly detection reliant on subtle indicators.
Real-World Examples
- WannaCry and NotPetya: Used the EternalBlue SMBv1 vulnerability (CVE-2017-0144) to move laterally within networks after initial infection.
- SolarWinds SUNBURST: Attackers conducted extensive lateral movement within government and enterprise environments using compromised credentials and post-exploitation tools.
- Conti Ransomware Group: Leveraged RDP, stolen credentials, and domain trust relationships to deploy ransomware payloads across enterprise networks.
Strategies for Detection and Prevention
1. Network Segmentation and Least Privilege Access
Dividing internal networks into functional zones and applying strict access controls reduces an attacker’s ability to pivot. Implementing least privilege, particularly for domain admins, limits the blast radius of a credential compromise.
2. Identity and Access Management (IAM) Monitoring
Maintain tight control over user accounts and privileges. Use identity-based segmentation, conditional access policies, and enforce MFA everywhere, especially for admin accounts.
3. Behavior-Based Detection Tools
EDR and XDR platforms with behavioral analytics and machine learning capabilities can identify suspicious sequences—like credential use followed by remote code execution or unusual logon patterns.
4. Honeypots and Deception Technologies
Deploying decoy systems and credentials can trip silent alarms when attackers attempt lateral movement. These systems serve as early detection mechanisms without affecting legitimate operations.
5. Log and Telemetry Correlation
Use SIEM systems to collect logs from endpoints, domain controllers, and authentication systems. Correlating activity across these systems can reveal unusual movements that individual tools might miss.
What Security Teams Need to Focus On
The goal isn’t just stopping lateral movement, it’s reducing dwell time, improving visibility, and forcing adversaries to make more detectable moves. Security teams should invest in:
- Credential hygiene (regular password resets, avoiding shared accounts)
- Real-time telemetry from endpoints and servers
- Visibility into inter-host communication
- Continuous validation of identities and device trust
A Zero Trust Architecture, while not a silver bullet, can significantly narrow the opportunity space for lateral movement by enforcing identity and access controls throughout the entire infrastructure.
Final Thoughts
Whether used by ransomware gangs or nation-state actors, lateral movement enables attackers to quietly prepare the most damaging stages of an attack. Organizations that treat internal traffic as trusted, fail to monitor east-west communication, or rely too heavily on perimeter defenses are placing themselves at risk.
Effective defense requires deep visibility, smart segmentation, behavioral analytics, and a readiness to assume breach. Detection and response strategies that focus solely on the initial infection will always be too little, too late.
How Can Netizen Help?
Netizen ensures that security gets built-in and not bolted-on. Providing advanced solutions to protect critical IT infrastructure such as the popular “CISO-as-a-Service” wherein companies can leverage the expertise of executive-level cybersecurity professionals without having to bear the cost of employing them full time.
We also offer compliance support, vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, and more security-related services for businesses of any size and type.
Additionally, Netizen offers an automated and affordable assessment tool that continuously scans systems, websites, applications, and networks to uncover issues. Vulnerability data is then securely analyzed and presented through an easy-to-interpret dashboard to yield actionable risk and compliance information for audiences ranging from IT professionals to executive managers.
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