LATERAL MOVEMENT DETECTION & CONTAINMENT

Stop attackers moving inside

Detect and contain lateral movement before business disruption.

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CHALLENGE

Perimeter security isn’t enough

Attackers move internally using trusted credentials and protocols.

East-west traffic lacks visibility

Most tools focus on perimeter defense, leaving internal communication and lateral movement activity largely unmonitored.

Legitimate credentials enable spread

Attackers use valid accounts and trusted services to expand access without triggering traditional signature-based alerts.

Command-and- control blends in

Encrypted or stealthy C2 communications often resemble normal internal traffic, delaying detection until damage occurs.

Segmentation gaps go unnoticed

Implicit trust relationships and excessive access create hidden attack paths that security teams struggle to identify.

APPROACH

Detect movement from within

Vectra AI reveals attacker paths across modern networks.

Monitor internal communication patterns

Continuously analyze real network, identity, and cloud activity
to identify assets and identities that are actively
communicating and exposed.

Exposure active attack progression

Connect asset presence with privilege levels, communication patterns, and exposure paths to reveal what truly matters to attackers.

Reveal reachable attack paths

Gain consistent visibility across on-prem, SaaS, IaaS, remote users, and unmanaged devices without relying solely on agents.

See beyond endpoint telemetry

Detect lateral movement and C2 behavior even when endpoint tools miss or cannot inspect internal traffic.

THE VECTRA AI PLATFORM

See how lateral movement detection and containment works on the Vectra AI Platform

Reduce exposure, stop attacks, and continuously strengthen posture.

Observability

Vectra AI reveals where identities, systems, and workloads connect across the network, highlighting potential attack paths and segmentation gaps.

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Threat detection, investigation, and response

Vectra AI’s behavioral AI detects reconnaissance, lateral movement, and command-and- control activity as attackers move across environments.

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Threat exposure & posture improvement

Security teams gain visibility into how attackers traverse the network, allowing them to close exposure gaps and reduce blast radius.

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Contain attacks before impact

Reduce dwell time and limit blast radius.

Earlier intrusion visibility

Identify active attacker movement before ransomware deployment, data exfiltration, or operational disruption occurs.

Faster containment decisions

Provide clear attack- path context that enables confident response and isolation of compromised systems.

Reduced investigation time

Eliminate guesswork by showing how attackers are progressing inside the environment.

Lower blast radius

Interrupt lateral movement early to prevent escalation into high-value systems and critical workloads.

CUSTOMER TESTIMONIALS

2,000+ security teams rely on the Vectra AI Platform for identity threat detection and response

Hydro Ottawa gained visibility into east-west traffic and attacker movement, dramatically reducing investigation time and enabling earlier containment.

Kinetsu closed common retail lateral movement paths bycovering unmanaged POS systems and internal access risks.

Anonymous Customer

“The biggest different was finally seeing what was happeninginside the network, not just at the perimeter.”

FAQs

How the Vectra AI Platform extends your coverage

How do attackers typically move laterally inside enterprise networks?

After gaining initial access, attackers move laterally by using legitimate credentials and trusted tools to expand their reach across systems, typically following a predictable sequence:

Gain initial access through phishing, credential theft, or exposed services

Harvest additional credentials from compromised systems

Access internal systems using remote services such as RDP or SMB

Escalate privileges to gain broader control over the environment

Move toward high-value data, domain controllers, or administrative systems

Common techniques include pass-the-hash, Kerberoasting, abuse of remote desktop protocol (RDP), and misuse of trusted administrative tools. Because these actions rely on legitimate access, they often appear as normal internal activity.

Why do traditional security tools miss lateral movement?

Traditional security tools are not designed to track how attackers move inside the network, creating critical blind spots once an attacker is already inside. This leads to several limitations:

Perimeter tools focus on inbound and outbound traffic, missing internal east-west movement

Endpoint tools detect isolated events but lack cross-system correlation

Tools operate in silos across network, identity, and endpoint environments

Signature-based detection fails when attackers use valid credentials and trusted tools

How does Vectra AI detect lateral movement differently?

Vectra AI gives security teams visibility into how attackers actually move inside their environment, so they can detect and stop lateral movement before it turns into ransomware or data loss. Instead of chasing isolated alerts, teams see the full attack as it develops across their network:

Continuously monitors east-west traffic across data center, cloud, and hybrid environments

Correlates reconnaissance, credential use, and internal movement into a single attack story

Detects techniques such as pass-the-hash, Kerberoasting, and internal reconnaissance early

Connects activity across systems so teams can prioritize and act with confidence

Explore how the Vectra AI Platform helps your team see lateral movement clearly, reduce alert noise, and stop attacks before they impact critical systems or data.

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