Blog | Defender for cloud's Agentless secret scanning for virtual machines now generally available

Cloud cybersecurity is of paramount importance in today's digital landscape, as organizations increasingly rely on cloud services to store and manage sensitive data, applications, and infrastructure. Attacks on cloud infrastructure pose severe risks to organizations such as data theft, ransomware attacks, crypto mining attacks, and service disruption.

During a cyber-attack, after gaining initial access to the target network, the attacker begins to move deeper into the network in search of sensitive data and other high-value assets. This stage, called lateral movement, is critical, as it enables threat actors to explore and expand their presence within a target network, increasing the potential for further compromise of critical systems.

One of the most common techniques used by hackers to move laterally in a network is credential theft. This technique involves the exploitation of exposed secrets such as passwords, keys, tokens, and connection strings to gain access to additional assets in the network. Secrets are often found on files, stored on the disks of virtual machines (VMs) or containers running on various cloud platforms.

 

 

Read the full blog post here: Defender for cloud's Agentless secret scanning for virtual machines is now generally available! - Microsoft Community Hub