Lateral movement lets attackers reach more systems after entry; network segmentation, least privilege, and monitoring can limit its impact.
Search across headline titles and summaries.
Background for this topic.
Lateral movement is an attacker’s progress from an initially compromised device or account to other systems, accounts, or network segments. It commonly uses stolen credentials, remote administration services, shared drives, exposed management interfaces, or vulnerabilities. The objective may be to reach higher-value assets, obtain greater privileges, or establish access that supports data theft or disruption. Because these actions can resemble normal administration, a single endpoint compromise can become a broader intrusion without clear perimeter breaches.
The most relevant defenses limit both reach and credential reuse: segment networks and sensitive environments, apply least privilege, require strong authentication for administrative access, and remove unnecessary remote services. Monitor authentication patterns, new administrative relationships, unusual remote execution, and access between systems that rarely communicate; correlate these signals with endpoint and identity telemetry. Rapidly disabling compromised accounts, isolating affected hosts, and rotating exposed credentials can contain movement, while vulnerability management reduces exploitable paths that bypass authentication.
Rick McElroy of VMware joins Dark Reading's Terry Sweeney at Dark Reading News Desk during RSA Conference to discuss lateral movement and cloud operations.