Security News > 2020 > September > Want to stop cybercrimes tearing through your network? First check your privileges

When attackers first gain access to the network, they will use a variety of techniques to escalate their privileges in order to gain higher level permissions and begin lateral movement.

Privilege escalation is the most critical link in the attack chain as it allows an attacker to accomplish several steps, including gaining network persistence, building-in additional backdoors and, ultimately, accessing critical assets.

Lateral movement is a tactic - often interconnected with privilege escalation - designed to allow attackers to enter and control systems on a network with the goal of spreading an attack or establishing long-term persistence.

Managing privileged access is one of the most effective ways to stop lateral movement by securing the access points attackers need to move across a network, thereby helping to block the progress of an attack.

These powerful accounts can enable attackers to move through a network and achieve full compromise of an Active Directory, the domain controller and even entire cloud environments.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2020/09/25/privileged_access_security/