Common Reasons Lateral Movement Occurs
Malicious threat actors generally have one primary goal in mind, and it can vary from one hacker to the next. Some reasons why cybercriminals use lateral movement to gain access to a network include:
Accessing a developer's work device to steal intellectual data, such as a project's source code.
Reading an executive's email for company information to manipulate the stock market or steal banking information.
Obtaining credentials or escalating privileges.
Stealing customer data from the server responsible for hosting payment card information (PCI).
Gaining access to some other type of asset or payload.
Regardless of the reason, a bad actor's main objective is to compromise the system and move through a network that contains what they want.