Lateral Movement & Internal Traffic Detection

Astral provides detection capabilities focused on identifying lateral movement and suspicious internal traffic within the environment. These detections aim to uncover attacker activity that occurs after initial access, when a threat actor attempts to move between systems, escalate privileges, or expand control across the network.

Lateral movement detection in Astral analyzes internal communication patterns between hosts, services, and network segments. By evaluating connection frequency, traffic volume, access paths, and protocol usage, Astral identifies abnormal internal traffic that deviates from expected behavior. High volumes of lateral traffic, especially between systems that do not normally communicate, are treated as potential indicators of compromise.

Astral also detects internal scanning and enumeration activity. Repeated connection attempts across multiple internal hosts, ports, or services may indicate efforts to discover additional targets or identify exploitable systems. These behaviors are correlated over time to distinguish legitimate administrative activity from malicious propagation attempts.

In addition, Astral evaluates internal service usage and access patterns to identify suspicious behavior. Sudden increases in access to specific services, unusual protocol usage within the internal network, or abnormal aggregation of connections may indicate credential abuse, automated tooling, or unauthorized movement within the environment.

All detections related to lateral movement and internal traffic are correlated with prior stages of the attack lifecycle, such as reconnaissance or exploitation activity. This correlation enables Astral to identify complete attack paths rather than isolated events. Once detected, these activities are integrated into Inopli’s Response and RPA workflows, enabling containment, investigation, and remediation of internal threats in a coordinated and auditable manner.