Which technique describes compromising a system to gain a remote shell and pivot through the compromised system to access other vulnerable systems in the network?

Which technique describes compromising a system to gain a remote shell and pivot through the compromised system to access other vulnerable systems in the network?

• A. Pivoting
• B. Relaying
• C. Runas
• D. Scheduled Task

Answer: (A)

Pivoting is the technique of using a compromised machine as a foothold to reach other machines inside the network. Once you have a remote shell on one host, you can route your traffic through that host to access other hosts that aren’t directly reachable from your starting point. This is how attackers perform lateral movement and expand their access without exposing their tools to the wider network. They may set up tunnels, proxies, or use port forwarding to forward sessions and services from the compromised host to other targets. This directly matches the described scenario in your question. Relaying typically involves forwarding authentication or communications between systems, rather than moving through the network to access additional hosts. Executing a program as another user is about privilege or account context, not about pivoting within the network. Scheduling tasks concerns persistence or automatic execution, not the act of moving from one system to another to reach more targets.

Pivoting is the technique of using a compromised machine as a foothold to reach other machines inside the network. Once you have a remote shell on one host, you can route your traffic through that host to access other hosts that aren’t directly reachable from your starting point. This is how attackers perform lateral movement and expand their access without exposing their tools to the wider network. They may set up tunnels, proxies, or use port forwarding to forward sessions and services from the compromised host to other targets. This directly matches the described scenario in your question.

Relaying typically involves forwarding authentication or communications between systems, rather than moving through the network to access additional hosts. Executing a program as another user is about privilege or account context, not about pivoting within the network. Scheduling tasks concerns persistence or automatic execution, not the act of moving from one system to another to reach more targets.