ExtraHop named a Leader in the 2025 Forrester Wave™: Network Analysis And Visibility Solutions

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DETECTION OVERVIEW

Unusual Interactive Traffic from an External Endpoint

Risk Factors

It is common for attackers to establish command-and-control (C&C) channels after the initial device compromise. The presence of a C&C channel on your network indicates that an attacker might be conducting a persistent attack. The ultimate objective of a persistent attack, such as data exfiltration, could have a significant impact on a business or organization.

The system might change the risk score for this detection.

Category

Command-and-Control
Detection diagram
Next in Command-and-Control: Unusual IoT Protocol Activity

Attack Background

Attackers can remotely interact with the command-line interface of a compromised device through a shell program or network utility, which enables the attacker to send commands over a TCP connection. The commands can be encrypted or tunneled through other protocols to help the attacker evade detection. After running commands, the attacker can ultimately control the remote device and then pivot to compromise other devices on the network.

Because IT administrators often remotely manage devices through a shell, investigate to confirm the shell activity is legitimate.

Mitigation Options

Configure firewalls to block outbound traffic to suspicious external hosts

Remove or prohibit unnecessary network utilities that enable users to easily create shells for most programming languages

Provision devices to communicate over authorized interfaces

MITRE ATT&CK ID

Associated content

Announcing The Forrester Wave™: Network Analysis And Visibility Solutions, Q4 2025

Network analysis and visibility solutions remain underrepresented in enterprises. Find out why in this preview of a new Wave report.

Report

ExtraHop® Named a Leader in First-Ever Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Network Detection and Response — ExtraHop

ExtraHop® Named a Leader in First-Ever Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Network Detection and Response

News

Detections

Visit this resource for more information.

Docs

The 2025 ExtraHop Global Threat Landscape Report: The Alarming Reality of Threat Actor Dwell Time and Deeper Network Access — ExtraHop

This analysis exposes the critical link between an organization's lack of internal visibility and the escalating cost of compromise, demanding an urgent re-evaluation of how core business assets are protected.

Blog

ExtraHop RevealX MITRE ATT&CK Coverage 2024 — ExtraHop

Learn why you need to be wary of the claims certain network detection and response providers make about their coverage against the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

Blog

MITRE ATT&CK - Network Detection & Response with RevealX — ExtraHop

Learn how NDR from RevealX helps security teams detect and investigate more adversary TTPs in the MITRE ATT&CK framework than rule-based tools.

External
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