Last updated at Thu, 27 Mar 2025 13:31:38 GMT

The reality of modern cyber threats

In today’s evolving cyber landscape, breaches are not a matter of if, but when. Attackers continue to refine their techniques, using stealthy post-compromise tactics to maintain persistence, escalate privileges, and move laterally across networks. The key to staying ahead is not just preventing attacks, but building resilience to withstand and respond to them effectively.

This concept of resilience aligns with Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM), a proactive approach to security validation. According to Gartner, CTEM consists of five pillars:

When we look at the five pillars, described by Gartner:

  1. Scope of your organization’s attack surface;
  2. Discover your attack surface;
  3. Prioritize your vulnerabilities;
  4. Validate security controls and finally;
  5. Mobilize people and processes to operationalize the CTEM findings.

Vector Command plays a critical role in the fourth pillar, continuously testing security defenses through post-compromise breach simulations that replicate real-world adversary tactics.

How Vector Command tests resilience

This blog is the third in our Vector Command series, where we explore the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) leveraged by Rapid7’s expert red team. Today, we’re focusing on post-compromise breach simulations—a critical capability in assessing an organization’s ability to detect and respond to a persistent adversary.

Figure 1: Post Compromise Breach Simulation Attack

TTP mapping to the MITRE ATT&CK framework

Once an attacker gains access—whether through phishing or external exploitation—the real damage begins. As part of our post-compromise breach simulation, Vector Command emulates the tactics and techniques adversaries use once they’re inside, leveraging the MITRE ATT&CK® frameworks as a guide.

Our red team stages command and control payloads and executes a series of proven attacker behaviors to test your resilience across the most common post-compromise scenarios:

  • Configure host persistence - Attackers work to maintain their foothold across reboots and user sessions by modifying startup tasks, hijacking processes, or introducing malicious code. We simulate these tactics to test your defenses against long-term compromise.
  • Attempt host privilege escalation - Gaining initial access is just the beginning. Adversaries often exploit misconfigurations or unpatched vulnerabilities to escalate privileges from standard user accounts to full admin control—enabling deeper access into your environment.
  • Query Active Directory for hosts accessible with compromised credentials - With valid credentials in hand—often obtained through phishing—we test whether an attacker could identify and access other systems or sensitive services using tools that mimic common enumeration techniques.
  • Attempt lateral movement on the network - We simulate how attackers move through your environment by pivoting between systems using native tools and compromised credentials. This reveals how far a real threat actor could go—and how quickly they’d reach your most critical assets.
  • Attempt domain privilege escalation using common misconfigurations - During breach simulations, our red team frequently tests for domain privilege escalation using misconfigurations that are surprisingly common in real-world environments. These include:
  • Local administrator accounts
  • Users with admin-like access
  • Standard users with elevated access to specific systems or sensitive functions

These misconfigurations often intersect with persistence techniques, as attackers take advantage of elevated contexts to maintain long-term access.

Want to see how exposed your organization might be? Surface Command can help identify admin users without multi-factor authentication (MFA), offering a quick view into high-risk accounts and helping fulfill the “Discover” step of Exposure Management.(See our Surface Command Admin users without MFA use case

  • Initial access payloads and internal breach playbooks - Every simulation is guided by detailed internal breach playbooks. These help test your incident response readiness and ensure alignment with known attacker workflows, including phishing payload delivery and post-access exploitation.

Each of these steps represents a real-world risk. By simulating them in a controlled environment, Vector Command helps organizations identify blind spots, validate security controls, and improve detection and response capabilities.

Beyond simulation: Actionable reporting & remediation with Vector Command

Security testing is only as valuable as the insights it delivers. With Vector Command, organizations receive tailored reports designed for both executive leadership and security practitioners:

  • Executive-Level Report: A high-level summary of key findings, business risks, and prioritized remediation steps, written in plain language for strategic decision-making.
  • Technical Report: A detailed breakdown of attack simulations, including timestamps, screenshots, and step-by-step execution logs for the security team to analyze and act on.

These insights are not just reports—they are action plans to help teams fortify their defenses against real adversary behaviors.

Take command of your attack surface

Cyber resilience is about understanding your adversary’s tactics before they use them against you. Vector Command delivers an always-on red teaming service that helps organizations stay ahead of attackers by continuously validating defenses and improving response strategies.

Want to learn more? Join us at our upcoming Take Command virtual summit, where we’ll explore how red teaming is evolving to outpace modern threats.

Register here.