This chapter has discussed ways in which attackers can use legitimate tools to perform lateral movement in a network. Some of the tools are very powerful, hence they are normally the main targets of attacks. This chapter unveils exploitable avenues that have been used against organizations through which attackers have been able to slip in and out. The lateral movement phase has been said to be the longest phase since hackers take their time to traverse a whole network.
At the end of the phase very little can be done to stop the hackers from further compromising the victim systems. The fate of the victim is almost always sealed, as shall be seen in the next chapter. The chapter will look at privilege escalation and focus on how attackers heighten the privileges of the accounts that they have compromised. It will discuss privilege escalation in two categories; vertical and horizontal. The ways in which these two can be carried out will be extensively discussed.