detecting-azure-lateral-movement

This skill instructs security practitioners on deploying Microsoft Defender for Cloud as a cloud-native application protection platform for Azure, multi-cloud, and hybrid environments. It covers enabling Defender plans for servers, containers, storage, and databases, configuring security recommendations, managing Secure Score, and integrating with the unified Defender portal for centralized threat management.

Perform lateral movement across Windows networks using WMI-based remote execution techniques including Impacket wmiexec.py, CrackMapExec, and native WMI commands for stealthy post-exploitation during red team engagements.

Detects lateral movement techniques including Pass-the-Hash, PsExec, WMI execution, RDP pivoting, and SMB-based spreading using SIEM correlation of Windows event logs, network flow data, and endpoint telemetry mapped to MITRE ATT&CK Lateral Movement (TA0008) techniques.

Configure Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) Conditional Access policies for zero trust access control. Covers signal-based policy design, device compliance requirements, risk-based authentication, named l

Implementing Microsoft Defender for Cloud to enable cloud security posture management, workload protection across VMs, containers, databases, and storage, configure security recommendations, and set up adaptive security controls with automated remediation.

Configure Microsoft Entra Privileged Identity Management to enforce just-in-time role activation, approval workflows, and access reviews for Azure AD privileged roles.

Detect WMI-based lateral movement by analyzing Windows Event ID 4688 process creation and Sysmon Event ID 1 for WmiPrvSE.exe child process patterns, remote process execution, and WMI event subscription persistence.

Hunt for DCOM-based lateral movement by detecting abuse of MMC20.Application, ShellBrowserWindow, and ShellWindows COM objects through Sysmon Event ID 1 (process creation) and Event ID 3 (network connection) correlation, WMI event analysis, RPC endpoint mapper traffic on port 135, and DCOM-specific parent-child process relationships.

Detect WMI event subscription persistence by analyzing Sysmon Event IDs 19, 20, and 21 for malicious EventFilter, EventConsumer, and FilterToConsumerBinding creation.

Detects typosquatting attacks in npm and PyPI package registries by analyzing package name similarity using Levenshtein distance and other string metrics, examining publish date heuristics to identify recently created packages mimicking established ones, and flagging download count anomalies where suspicious packages have disproportionately low usage compared to their legitimate targets. The analyst queries the PyPI JSON API and npm registry API to gather package metadata for automated comparison. Activates for requests involving package typosquatting detection, dependency confusion analysis, malicious package identification, or software supply chain threat hunting in package registries.

Detect abuse of elevation control mechanisms including UAC bypass, sudo exploitation, and setuid/setgid manipulation by monitoring registry modifications, process elevation flags, and unusual parent-child process relationships.

Detect process injection techniques (T1055) including classic DLL injection, process hollowing, and APC injection by analyzing Sysmon events for cross-process memory operations, remote thread creation, and anomalous DLL loading patterns.