Hello, and welcome to this course in which we're talking about using Python for lateral movement. In this video, we're going to start talking about remote services, and how we can use Python to interact with these remote services to allow an attacker to move laterally through a compromise network. The use of remote services has become increasingly common in recent days. As telework has become more common and more organizations have adopted remote work, they need ability to support their remote workers. Meaning that they need to ensure that their remote workers are able to access the systems, files, and other resources that they require on the enterprise network. So these organizations have deployed a variety of different solutions that are designed to help support their remote workforce. Some common examples for remote access include the remote desktop protocol, which allows employees working from home to remotely control computers located on the enterprise network, which is useful because they don't have to re-install software, etc, and virtual private networks, which provide an encrypted connection to the enterprise network, and a user experience similar to being directly plugged into that network. These and all of the other remote services that an organization might have deployed are designed to make it possible for an employee to access systems, files, websites, and other resources that are located on the enterprise network. These remote services apply both to teleworkers and to employees on the local network. For example, a file server might be a good example of a remote service that existed well before telework because it allowed users to more easily share files on the network. While these remote services have a variety of legitimate applications, and in fact are essential to the ability to support a remote workforce, they also pose a threat to corporate cybersecurity. Because anything that a legitimate user can use to move throughout the network, access resources across the IT infrastructure can also be used by an attacker to move throughout the network and access resources across the organization's IT infrastructure. We're talking about remote services in this and the next video, because we'll be looking at how Python code can be used to interact with these remote services, and leverage them for lateral movement. More specifically, we'll take a look at SMB and Windows file shares, or Admin shares, and how these services allow an attacker to remotely access the file system on a different computer, and add, remove, edit, etc, files on that remote computer, and even achieve execution, which is very valuable for an attacker attempting to move through the network. Thank you.
