Halting Lateral Movement: Host-Based Segmentation and Tiered Administration
Preventing attackers from traversing corporate subnets after an initial workstation compromise using internal firewall rules.
The Flat Network Epidemic
In most corporate networks, all workstations and servers reside in flat, unsegmented subnets. Once an attacker compromises a receptionist's laptop, they can directly probe ports on domain controllers, finance servers, and executive workstations.
Deploying Workstation-to-Workstation Isolation
Client workstations have zero operational requirement to communicate with other client workstations. Implementing Windows Defender Firewall rules that block all inbound SMB (port 445) and RPC (port 135) between workstation IP ranges stops 90% of lateral pivoting tools like PsExec.
The Tiered Administrative Model
Enforce strict separation between Tier-0 (Domain Controllers/Entra Connect), Tier-1 (Application Servers), and Tier-2 (Workstations). Never allow Tier-0 credentials to be entered on Tier-2 endpoints where LSASS memory can be dumped.
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