What is Lateral Movement in Cybersecurity?
Lateral movement is a technique used by attackers to navigate through a network after gaining initial access, allowing them to move from one system to another.
It often starts with attackers tricking your employees into providing access through methods like social engineering, such as phishing emails, malicious attachments, or credential harvesting.
Once inside, the real danger begins: Attackers start moving from one compromised system to another, slowly expanding their control within the network. The goal is to identify valuable assets, sensitive data, or administrative credentials while avoiding detection.
The consequences of unchecked lateral movement can be severe:
- Expanded attack surface with multiple compromised systems
- Elevated privileges that provide attackers with greater control
- Persistent access that remains even if the initial entry point is discovered
- Significantly higher remediation costs and business disruption
A clear example of the risks posed by lateral movement is the OldGremlin ransomware group. According to Group-IB’s research, they spent an average of 49 days moving undetected within the networks of various organizations, particularly in Russia, before launching their attack.
They used stolen credentials and official tools, like RDP and TeamViewer, to disable security measures and deploy ransomware, demanding ransoms as high as $16.9 million.
Anatomy of a Lateral Movement Attack
A typical lateral movement attack follows a predictable pattern. Understanding each phase helps you identify and disrupt attacks before they succeed:
| Phase | Attacker Activities | What You Might See |
| 1. Initial Access | Compromise a single endpoint through phishing, vulnerability, or exposed service |
|
| 2. Reconnaissance | Map network, identify targets, and discover user accounts |
|
| 3. Credential Theft | Harvest passwords, hashes, or Kerberos tickets |
|
| 4. Privilege Escalation | Exploit vulnerabilities to gain higher permissions |
|
| 5. Lateral Movement | Move to additional systems using stolen credentials |
|
| 6. Persistence | Create backdoors for continued access |
|
| 7. Data Collection | Identify and stage valuable information |
|
| 8. Exfiltration | Remove data from the organization |
|
Key Techniques Used for Lateral Movement
Understanding the methods attackers use for lateral movement is essential for developing effective countermeasures. Here’s how attackers typically move through your network:
1. Pass-the-Hash and Pass-the-Ticket Attacks
Rather than needing actual passwords, attackers steal and reuse password hashes or Kerberos tickets to authenticate to other systems. This technique lets them move laterally without cracking passwords or triggering failed login attempts.
For example, an attacker might compromise a workstation, extract NTLM hashes from memory, and use those hashes to authenticate to other systems without ever knowing the actual password.
2. Remote Service Exploitation
Attackers leverage vulnerable remote services like RDP, WMI, or PowerShell Remoting to execute commands on distant systems. Since these are legitimate administrative tools, their use often blends with normal IT operations.
A security assessment at a financial institution revealed that attackers had compromised an internet-facing server and then used WMI to silently move to internal systems while appearing as legitimate administrator activity.
3. Internal Spear Phishing
After compromising one account, attackers send targeted phishing emails from that trusted internal address to colleagues, spreading their access throughout the organization.
To illustrate, attackers could have compromised an HR employee’s account and sent an email titled ‘urgent tax form updates’ to finance staff, resulting in multiple additional compromised systems.
4. Exploitation of Trust Relationships
Domain trusts, shared local administrator passwords, and inadequately secured service accounts create pathways that attackers can exploit to move between systems and domains.
For example, a common lateral movement attack leverages the fact that many organizations use identical local administrator passwords across multiple systems, allowing attackers to compromise one system and access others easily.
5. Living Off the Land (LOL) Techniques
Sophisticated attackers increasingly use legitimate system tools like PsExec, WMI, and PowerShell to avoid introducing malware that might trigger security alerts. These ‘living off the land’ techniques make detecting lateral movement particularly challenging.
Lateral Movement in Advanced Persistent Threats
Lateral movement forms the backbone of virtually every sophisticated Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) campaign. These meticulously planned, long-term attack operations rely on stealthy lateral movement to maintain persistence within target environments for months or even years.
For state-sponsored threat actors and sophisticated criminal groups, lateral movement is a strategic imperative. APT operators create redundant access points that ensure they won’t lose their foothold even if one compromised system is discovered and remediated.
Unlike opportunistic attacks, APTs employing lateral movement focus on specific objectives:
- Intelligence gathering from targeted systems
- Intellectual property theft from specific repositories
- Strategic positioning for future operations
- Long-term monitoring of sensitive communications
The Lazarus Group, a North Korean state-sponsored threat actor, provides a sobering example of lateral movement at its most sophisticated. In their 2016 attack on the Central Bank of Bangladesh, Lazarus actors infiltrated the bank’s network and moved laterally to systems connected to the SWIFT financial messaging platform.
This lateral movement allowed them to issue fraudulent SWIFT transactions, nearly stealing $1 billion. However, a typographical error in one of the transfer requests (misspelling “Foundation” as “Fandation”) raised suspicions and prevented the full amount from being stolen.
What is Ransomware Lateral Movement?
Ransomware lateral movement amplifies damage by enabling attackers to spread malware across multiple systems before executing their encryption payload.
This evolution from opportunistic encryption to strategic lateral movement has dramatically increased the damage potential of ransomware attacks. Maximum impact is ensured by the simultaneous encryption of numerous critical systems, including backup infrastructure.
Attackers can spend up to a month moving laterally before deploying encryption. This preparation period allows them to:
- Identify and target critical data repositories
- Disable security controls that might prevent encryption
- Compromise backup systems to prevent recovery
- Exfiltrate sensitive data for double-extortion tactics
Group-IB’s recent investigations highlight just how damaging ransomware lateral movement can be. In 2024, the Qilin ransomware group infiltrated Synnovis, a pathology services provider. Instead of striking immediately, they may have moved laterally across the network while avoiding detection. The damage was a $50 million ransom and a profound impact on several key NHS hospitals in London.
How to Detect Lateral Movement in Your Network
Detecting lateral movement requires a multi-layered approach focusing on behavioral anomalies rather than just known malicious signatures. You need visibility into network traffic patterns, authentication events, and endpoint activities to spot the subtle indicators of attackers moving through your environment.
Detect lateral movement by monitoring these five key indicators:
- Unexpected system logins
- Rapid, unusual credential usage patterns
- Unusual combinations of administrative processes
- Unexpected network interactions
- Excessive directory service queries
Advanced detection tools like Group-IB’s Managed Extended Detection and Response (Managed XDR) are increasingly effective at uncovering the subtle behavioral patterns that signal lateral movement. These tools can flag potential lateral movement even when attackers use legitimate credentials by establishing baseline behaviours for users and systems.
For early detection of lateral movement, implement:
- Network traffic analysis to identify unusual communication patterns.
- Endpoint detection and response (EDR) to monitor for suspicious process activity.
- Security information and event management (SIEM) correlation of authentication events.
- Deception technology (honeypots, honeyfiles) to detect reconnaissance activity.
- Regular threat hunting to search for indicators of lateral movement proactively.
Lateral Movement and Its Impact on Incident Response
When lateral movement occurs during a breach, it dramatically complicates incident response efforts. Instead of containing and remediating a single compromised system, your team must identify and address multiple footholds across the organizational IT environment.
Effective incident response to lateral movement requires:
- Rapid isolation of affected systems without disrupting critical operations
- Parallel investigation of multiple compromise points to understand the full scope
- Coordinated remediation that addresses all attacker footholds simultaneously
- Strategic recovery that prevents re-compromise through overlooked backdoors
Organizations that have experienced extensive lateral movement often find themselves forced to rebuild significant portions of their infrastructure to ensure complete eradication of the threat. The financial and operational impact of such extensive remediation can dwarf the initial breach costs.
Your incident response planning should specifically address lateral movement scenarios by:
- Defining containment strategies that can isolate network segments
- Establishing procedures for identifying the full extent of compromise
- Creating communication templates for stakeholders impacted by widespread remediation
- Preparing recovery processes that can operate at scale across multiple systems
Ways to Prevent Lateral Movement
While detection is crucial, preventing lateral movement before it occurs delivers the greatest security benefit. Effective prevention requires implementing controls that limit an attacker’s ability to move between systems even after they’ve gained initial access.
Network segmentation stands as the single most effective defense against lateral movement attack patterns. An attacker’s movement from the initial entry point can be limited when your network is divided into siloed segments or zones with strict access controls between them. Each segment should operate as an independent security zone with its own protection measures and access requirements.
Beyond segmentation, implementing comprehensive security best practices further reduces attack surfaces and limits attacker mobility. We’ll explore these key strategies below:
| Prevention Strategy | Implementation Approach | Benefits |
| Network Segmentation | Divide the network into isolated security zones with controlled access between segments | Contains breaches in limited areas, preventing attackers from reaching critical assets |
| Principle of Least Privilege | Ensure users and systems have only the minimum access necessary for their function | Limits lateral movement options for attackers even after initial compromise |
| Privileged Access Management | Secure, vault, and monitor the use of administrative credentials | Prevents attackers from obtaining and misusing powerful credentials |
| Multi-Factor Authentication | Require MFA for all remote access and privileged operations | Blocks lateral movement attempts using stolen passwords alone |
| Credential Hygiene | Eliminate password reuse, implement regular rotation, and use strong, unique passwords | Prevents attackers from using compromised credentials across multiple systems |
| Application Allowlisting | Only permit authorized applications to execute on systems | Blocks attacker tools and malware used for lateral movement |
| Regular Patching | Prioritize patching of vulnerabilities that facilitate lateral movement | Eliminates known exploit paths that attackers use to move laterally |
How Group-IB Helps Organizations Prevent Lateral Movement Attacks
Lateral movement marks a turning point in most breaches, as it’s how attackers escalate access, discover sensitive assets, and quietly entrench themselves across your network.
Group-IB’s Incident Response is built to stop this progression fast and decisively. Our team quickly isolates the threat, restores critical operations, and ensures attackers are fully removed from your environment.
Beyond containment, we deliver a complete picture of the attack, from in-depth investigative reports detailing how attackers moved laterally, to tailored remediation plans, legal-ready incident documentation, and clear next-step recommendations. Every response is designed to harden your defenses and support full operational recovery.
We also provide 24/7 monitoring through our CERT-GIB team for two weeks following resolution, helping your IT and security teams maintain momentum while implementing improvements with confidence.
Ready to take control before attackers do? Explore how Group-IB’s Incident Response Services help organizations detect, contain, and recover from complex cyberattacks.