Lateral movement refers to the ability of an attacker to move horizontally from one compromised resource or system to another within the same environment. Misconfigurations that allow for lateral movement can lead to the rapid spread of attacks and greater compromise of resources across your cloud environment. Here are some common lateral movement-related misconfigurations to be aware of:

• Weak network segmentation: Not properly segmenting network resources and failing to establish appropriate network controls.

Risk: Weak network segmentation allows attackers who gain access to one resource to easily move laterally and access other resources.

• Excessive trust between resources: Overly permissive access policies or trust relationships between resources, allowing unauthorized lateral movement.

Risk: Excessive trust enables attackers to leverage compromised credentials to access additional resources without detection.

• Shared privileges across resources: Assigning identical or similar permissions to multiple resources, facilitating lateral movement.

Risk: Shared privileges make it easier for attackers to move laterally once they compromise a single resource.

• Unrestricted inter-resource communication: Allowing unrestricted communication between resources, even those that do not require direct interaction.

Risk: Unrestricted communication paths create opportunities for attackers to traverse the environment and escalate their attacks.

• Misconfigured IAM roles and permissions: Allowing roles or permissions that are not properly scoped, enabling unauthorized lateral movement.

Risk: Misconfigured IAM settings can grant attackers broader access than necessary, facilitating lateral movement and privilege escalation.

• Unpatched or vulnerable resources: Not regularly updating and patching resources, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and lateral movement.

Risk: Attackers can exploit known vulnerabilities to compromise resources and move laterally within the environment.

• Missing network monitoring and intrusion detection: Failing to implement proper network monitoring and intrusion detection systems.

Risk: Without monitoring, attackers can move laterally undetected, making it difficult to respond promptly.

• Inadequate logging and auditing: Not enabling comprehensive logging and auditing of resource activities.

Risk: Insufficient logging makes it challenging to track and trace lateral movement activities.

• Unsecured remote access: Not securing remote access to resources, such as SSH or RDP, with strong authentication and encryption.

Risk: Attackers can use compromised credentials to access resources remotely and move laterally.

• Undiscovered malware or persistence mechanisms: Failing to detect and remove malware or persistence mechanisms from compromised resources.

Risk: Malware and persistence mechanisms enable attackers to maintain access and move laterally within the environment.

CSPM tools help identify these lateral movement-related misconfigurations by continuously assessing access controls, network configurations, and resource behaviors. Let’s dive more deeply into another crucial security concern: data protection.