IntermediateTECHNICAL
You are responsible for monitoring and maintaining endpoint protection and EDR across a mixed Windows and Linux environment. What concrete configuration and hardening steps would you prioritize on each platform to improve detection and prevention of lateral movement?
Cybersecurity Analyst
General

Sample Answer

In my last role we had about 2,500 Windows endpoints and 400 Linux servers, and lateral movement was our top concern. On Windows, I started by tightening local admin use: removed domain users from local Administrators, enforced separate PAW accounts, and blocked pass-the-hash by disabling NTLM where possible and enforcing SMB signing. We used our EDR to aggressively log and alert on PowerShell, WMI, remote service creation, and RDP usage outside jump hosts. That alone cut “suspicious remote execution” alerts by ~60% because we could tune around known-good pathways. On Linux, I hardened SSH (key‑based auth only, no direct root login, restricted ssh-agent forwarding) and enabled auditd rules for sudo, new users, and modification of auth config. We fed both Windows and Linux EDR telemetry into a single SIEM, correlated logon anomalies by user and host, and built simple rules like “same user authenticating to >5 hosts in 10 minutes,” which helped us catch a real lateral movement attempt during a red team in under 5 minutes.

Keywords

Tighten Windows local admin, RDP, NTLM/SMB and script execution monitoringHarden Linux SSH, sudo usage, and audit key lateral movement actionsCentralize EDR telemetry and correlate authentications across hostsUse concrete detection rules focused on abnormal movement patterns
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