name: Lateral Movement
id: 399d65dc-1f08-499b-a259-aad9051f38ad
version: 2
date: '2020-02-04'
author: David Dorsey, Splunk
type: batch
description: Detect and investigate tactics, techniques, and procedures around how
  attackers move laterally within the enterprise. Because lateral movement can expose
  the adversary to detection, it should be an important focus for security analysts.
narrative: "Once attackers gain a foothold within an enterprise, they will seek to\
  \ expand their accesses and leverage techniques that facilitate lateral movement.\
  \ Attackers will often spend quite a bit of time and effort moving laterally. Because\
  \ lateral movement renders an attacker the most vulnerable to detection, it's an\
  \ excellent focus for detection and investigation.\\\nIndications of lateral movement\
  \ can include the abuse of system utilities (such as `psexec.exe`), unauthorized\
  \ use of remote desktop services, `file/admin$` shares, WMI, PowerShell, pass-the-hash,\
  \ or the abuse of scheduled tasks. Organizations must be extra vigilant in detecting\
  \ lateral movement techniques and look for suspicious activity in and around high-value\
  \ strategic network assets, such as Active Directory, which are often considered\
  \ the primary target or \"crown jewels\" to a persistent threat actor.\\\nAn adversary\
  \ can use lateral movement for multiple purposes, including remote execution of\
  \ tools, pivoting to additional systems, obtaining access to specific information\
  \ or files, access to additional credentials, exfiltrating data, or delivering a\
  \ secondary effect. Adversaries may use legitimate credentials alongside inherent\
  \ network and operating-system functionality to remotely connect to other systems\
  \ and remain under the radar of network defenders.\\\nIf there is evidence of lateral\
  \ movement, it is imperative for analysts to collect evidence of the associated\
  \ offending hosts. For example, an attacker might leverage host A to gain access\
  \ to host B. From there, the attacker may try to move laterally to host C. In this\
  \ example, the analyst should gather as much information as possible from all three\
  \ hosts. \\\n It is also important to collect authentication logs for each host,\
  \ to ensure that the offending accounts are well-documented. Analysts should account\
  \ for all processes to ensure that the attackers did not install unauthorized software."
references:
- https://www.fireeye.com/blog/executive-perspective/2015/08/malware_lateral_move.html
tags:
  analytic_story: Lateral Movement
  category:
  - Adversary Tactics
  product:
  - Splunk Enterprise
  - Splunk Enterprise Security
  - Splunk Cloud
  usecase: Advanced Threat Detection
