Lateral movement is a stage in cyberattacks where hackers move from one compromised device to infect others on the same network. This allows them to gain access to more sensitive data and systems, and ultimately leads to more damage. Lateral movement is used in over 80% of ransomware attacks, making it a risk to every organization in the world willing to pay to redeem its data from attackers. In the past, this tactic was confined to top APT cybercrime organizations and nation-state operators. Today, however, it has become a commoditized tool, well within the skillset of any ransomware threat actor. This makes real-time detection and prevention of lateral movement a necessity to organizations of all sizes and across all industries. But the disturbing truth is that there is actually no tool in the current security stack that can provide this real-time protection, creating what is arguably the most critical security weakness in an organization's security architecture. In this article, we'll walk through the most essentials questions around the challenge of lateral movement protection, understand why multifactor authentication (MFA) and service account protection are the gaps that make it possible, and learn how Silverfort's platform turns the tables on attackers and makes lateral movement protection finally within reach. Ready? Let's begin.