As digital infrastructure continues to evolve, Active Directory remains a severe and ever-present security risk that can present cybercriminals with a clear attack patch to the inner workings of any organization.
Furthermore, regardless of how good one’s Active Directory security may be, attacks can still occur. Adding to the challenge, Active Directory’s seemingly endless, voluminous settings and configurations make it difficult and time-consuming to secure continuously.
The reality is that almost every breach headline behind every headline is an insecure Active Directory (AD) deployment. In fact, 80% of attacks use AD to perform lateral movement and privilege escalation, while 60% of new malware includes codes to target AD misconfigurations.
In short, the harsh reality is that AD has become the favoured target for attackers. It’s how they elevate privilege, leveraging known flaws and misconfigurations.
Unfortunately, most organizations struggle with Active Directory security due to misconfigurations piling up as domains increase in complexity, leaving security teams unable to find and fix flaws before they become business-impacting issues.
At the heart of the issue lies a multitude of nuanced challenges. For one, there are constant changes in Active Directory (AD)—ultimately limiting visibility to the AD attack surface and thus frequently introducing new attack pathways. And the reality is that few security teams have enough visibility and context to find and remediate AD misconfigurations and vulnerabilities.
The question often asked is, “Does trying harder help?” To put it bluntly, no. The size and complexity of most AD implementations make manual monitoring impractical and real-time detection of attacks impossible. Incident response and threat hunting are hampered because teams can’t see all the hidden misconfigurations and interconnected relationships.
Worst of all, there are real and present consequences of having weak Active Directory security. Successful breaches are usually followed by attacks on Active Directory to escalate privileges, move laterally, install malware and exfiltrate data. Attackers successfully hide these advances from logs and other monitoring tools since their movements through Active Directory appear compliant with existing security policies. The high cost of weak AD security hits when attackers successfully deliver payloads that result in data loss, ransom demands, environment reconstruction or brand impact.
But, there is good news. Those responsible for AD security can find and fix weaknesses before attacks happen—it simply takes the right tools. Tenable.ad enables users to proactively discover and prioritize weaknesses within existing Active Directory domains and reduce exposure by following simple step-by-step remediation guidance.
Interested in how Tenable.ad can help your environment? Imagine the ability to harden your Active Directory, stop attackers in their tracks, eliminate their potential movements and ensure fewer breaches. It’s just a click away.
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