The Cyber Defense eMagazine March Edition for 2024

Anatomy Of an Endpoint Attack: How A Cyberattack
Can Compromise an Enterprise Network
By Guillermo Gomez, Vice President of Endpoint Product, WatchGuard Technologies
For truly effective network security posture, it’s crucial to protect all of your company’s devices as cyber
adversaries can turn any endpoint – phones, computers, virtual machines, embedded devices, servers,
POS terminals – into an entry point into your organization. Unprotected endpoints are a leading attack
vector for malicious actors, who often move from one to another until they find a way to penetrate more
deeply into a network. That’s why it’s so critical to have visibility across all endpoints in your organization.
However, establishing this comprehensive visibility and ensuring all endpoints are protected isn’t always
easy. Knowing how to properly lock down the myriad devices within your company’s network and maintain
protection first requires knowledge of how a cyberattack typically begins and spreads through your
systems. Below, we’ll walk through what the stages of an endpoint attack look like and provide tips on
how to stop these threats in their tracks.
The anatomy of an endpoint attack
There are countless ways for a threat actor to conduct an attack and move laterally through your network.
One common method is to conduct a spam or phishing campaign sending emails with a dangerous
attachment to unsuspecting users throughout an organization. An end user within your network might
click on the attachment and launch an initial malware payload. If their device isn’t equipped with an
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