When the history of cybersecurity is written, lateral movement will have the leading role as the villain. Most cyberattacks—even when they don’t make the news—follow the same basic plot. It almost always starts with machine compromise, followed by reconnaissance, exploitation of a vulnerability, and then a host of other tactics to move laterally and cause damage.
Luckily, this order of operations relies on a single basic assumption: the compromised machine will have a direct network line of sight to other machines that the attacker can damage and steal information from. In other words, to stop attacks, we need to prevent lateral movement. This is where microsegmentation comes in.
The Role of Lateral Movement in Cyberattacks
Lateral movement is a technique used by cybercriminals to move through a network after gaining initial access. It allows attackers to:
- Expand Their Reach: Once inside, attackers explore the network, identifying and compromising additional machines and resources.
- Gather Information: Attackers use lateral movement to collect valuable data, including credentials, confidential information, and intellectual property.
- Establish Persistence: By compromising multiple machines, attackers can maintain their presence in the network, making it harder to eradicate them.
- Maximize Damage: Lateral movement enables attackers to deploy malware, ransomware, and other malicious payloads across the network, amplifying the impact of their attack.
Here’s how 12Port Horizon addresses the dangers of lateral movement:
1. Network Microsegmentation for On-Premise, Hybrid, and Cloud
Our solution offers comprehensive microsegmentation across all environments, including on-premise, hybrid, and cloud. This ensures that your entire network is protected, regardless of where your workloads reside. By segmenting the network into isolated zones, we limit the attacker’s ability to move laterally.
2. Simple, Secure, Agentless
Simple: Our agentless architecture simplifies deployment and maintenance, making it easy for organizations to implement and manage microsegmentation without the need for complex installations or extensive resources.
Secure: By leveraging SDN (Software-Defined Networking) and native enforcement architecture, our solution provides robust security measures that protect your network without compromising performance.
Agentless: Unlike traditional solutions that require agents on every device, our agentless approach reduces overhead and potential points of failure, ensuring seamless operation and enhanced security.
3. Visualization of East-West Traffic
12Port Horizon provides unparalleled visibility into east-west traffic, allowing you to monitor and analyze internal network activity. This visibility helps you detect and respond to suspicious activities before they escalate into full-blown attacks.
4. Isolation of Workloads
By isolating workloads, our solution ensures that a compromised machine cannot directly communicate with other critical assets in the network. This containment strategy limits the attacker’s ability to move laterally and minimizes the potential impact of a breach.
5. Enforcement of Zero Trust Principles
Our solution aligns with Zero Trust architecture by enforcing strict access controls and continuously verifying user identities. This approach ensures that only authenticated and authorized users can access specific segments, further reducing the risk of lateral movement.
6. Integration with Identity Providers and MFA Services
Our microsegmentation solution integrates seamlessly with leading identity providers and multi-factor authentication (MFA) services, including Entra ID, Microsoft Active Directory, SAML IdP, LDAP, TOTP, Radius-enabled services, YubiKey, Duo Security, and email-based MFA. This integration ensures that security policies are consistently applied and enforced across all segments.
Lateral movement is a critical technique used by cybercriminals to amplify the impact of their attacks. By implementing our advanced, hassle-free microsegmentation solution, organizations can effectively isolate and secure their workloads, stopping lateral movement and protecting their critical assets.
Stop lateral movement in its tracks and safeguard your organization against the evolving landscape of cyber threats. Request a demo today.