Threat Actor Lateral Movement within Hybrid Cloud

Abstract

This quantitative study explored the significance and efficacy of network security architectural recommendations documented in NIST 800-125b in preventing lateral movement attempted by cybersecurity threat actors. As organizations globally struggle to maintain a secure cybersecurity foundation, architectural choices and how they impact security posture are not always considered when migrating to or adopting cloud computing. A secure network architecture across hybrid clouds is critical to provide a foundation for layered controls to mitigate technology-based risk within an organization. This study determined the significance of NIST 800-125b guidance in mitigating threat actor lateral movement within hybrid cloud. The researcher determined the impact of different security architectures on threat actor lateral movement and established a hybrid cloud lateral movement blast radius algorithm to quantify the risk factor of lateral movement attacks within a compute environment. The result of this study provides guidance enabling the measurement, quantification and mitigation of threat actor lateral movement within hybrid cloud.