LateralMovement
Lateral movement involves the exploitation of vulnerabilities, use of stolen credentials, or deployment of various tools to gain access to other systems within the network. This movement is often stealthy and can go undetected without proper monitoring. Attackers may escalate their privileges, install additional malicious software, or access sensitive data, spreading their footprint within the network whilst gathering more data to encrypt or exfiltrate for extortion.
Why is Detecting Lateral Movement Crucial?
Early Detection of Breaches: Identifying lateral movement can be key in detecting a breach early in its progression. Early detection means a higher chance of mitigating the attack before significant damage is done.
Limiting the Spread of Attack: By detecting lateral movement, organizations can limit the spread of the attack, isolating compromised systems to prevent further damage.
Data Protection: Lateral movement often targets data-rich environments. Detecting it early helps in protecting sensitive information from unauthorized access or exfiltration.
Compliance and Reputation: Stopping attackers in their tracks not only helps in compliance with data protection regulations but also protects the organization's reputation.
Preventing lateral movement can be achieved by network segmentation and controlling privileges.
Depending on network size, implementing proper network segmentation could require a gigantic effort, there are many products on the market that make it possible or firewalls can be used to isolate segments of the network away from each other.
Controlling privileges helps stifle lateral movement by preventing powerful permissions falling into the hands of attackers. You should aim to ensure admin accounts are treated differently to standard accounts by using stronger, more complex passwords and adopt a least privilege model. Does the entire IT team need Domain Admin or Workstation Admin? Is there anybody that can be removed from high privileged groups? Finally, never cross contaminate permissions. If an account is a member of workstation admin, do not make it also a member of server admin, this separation of duties will mean an attacker has to compromise more accounts to gain the access they require and thus hopefully generate more opportunities for detection.
Lateral movement detection is a cornerstone in defending against ransomware and other sophisticated cyber threats. As stated in other parts of this documentation, you are not expected to become an expert in every stage and nuance of attacker behavior at large. Instead good hygiene and implementing a robust EDR platform, ensuring its alerts are constantly monitored can significantly enhance an organization's cybersecurity posture. While this is just one aspect of a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy, it's a critical one in the fight against ransomware.