In less than an hour, 60% of an organisation’s IT environment can be compromised
The biggest cybersecurity risks to organisations stem from attackers tapping into trusted “internal access paths” that businesses use daily, according to a leading Israeli business resilience firm.
Analysis by Zero Networks of 3.4 trillion activities across 400 enterprise environments over a year shows once initial access is gained – for example via an employee’s email or intranet account – lateral movement can compromise more than 60% of an organisation’s IT environment in less than an hour.
“What our data analysis confirms in theory, and what recent successful attacks such as those on Jaguar Land Rover, Marks & Spencer and multiple London councils confirm in practice, is that resilience is key,” said Albert Estevez Polo of Zero Networks.
“Modern cyber resilience depends on limiting lateral movement: containing threats at their point of entry and preventing them from spreading across the environment.
“By reducing the blast radius of a breach, organisations protect critical assets, maintain operational continuity, and remain resilient even when defences are bypassed.”
Zero Networks, headquartered in Tel Aviv, has submitted its research, including these sobering findings, to a parliamentary committee examining the UK’s proposed Cyber Security and Resilience Bill.
‘Resilience must be the ability to continue operations, not to just to recover in future’
Polo added: “Resilience must be defined as the ability to largely continue operations, not simply to survive and recover at some unknown point in the future.
“Some may see this as prescriptive, but for critical national infrastructure in particular, this capability must be mandatory.”
The study highlights that 71% of threat activity uses standard Microsoft protocols (such as SMB, RDP, WinRM and RPC), which are essential for operations and cannot be disabled.
Low-frequency signals from systems like Microsoft SQL Server or Active Directory often indicate high-impact risks, Zero Networks said.
