Lateral Movement (noun)

[ lat-er-uhl moov-muhnt ]

Lateral movement refers to the technique used by attackers to navigate through a network after gaining initial access, moving from one system to another in search of valuable data or higher-privileged accounts. Unlike privilege escalation, which involves gaining higher levels of access on a single system, lateral movement is about expanding reach across multiple systems while often maintaining the same level of access.

Example Sentence:  "After compromising an employee's workstation, the attacker used lateral movement techniques to access additional machines within the corporate network, searching for sensitive financial records."