Lateral Movement and Persistence: The Decisive Red Team Phase
1. Introduction Lateral movement and persistence Red Team operations mark the difference between a contained incident and a total breach: this is the phase where the adversary abandons the initial foothold, moves across the network with stolen credentials, and secures a second entry even if discovered. In any professional engagement, lateral movement and persistence Red Team planning decide whether the exercise becomes a real demonstration of risk or a simple intrusion drill. This article covers that decisive phase with a hands-on approach: movement techniques with psexec, WMI, and Pass-the-Hash, persistence mechanisms that survive reboots, pivot tunnels with chisel and SSH, …

