When people think about cyber breaches, they often imagine a single decisive moment. A vulnerability is exploited, systems are compromised, and the damage is done. In reality, most breaches unfold gradually, through a sequence of small, connected actions. These sequences are known as attack paths.
Understanding attack paths is essential for offensive security practitioners, but it is just as valuable for defenders. Seeing how breaches actually progress makes it easier to spot early warning signs and break attacks before they reach their objective.
This article walks through how real-world attack paths typically unfold, step by step, without focusing on tools or instructions.
What an Attack Path Really Is
An attack path is the chain of actions an attacker takes to move from their starting point to their goal. That goal might be data theft, persistence, disruption, or deeper access into an environment.
Attack paths are shaped by discovery and opportunity. Attackers adapt constantly based on what they find. A path that works in one environment may fail entirely in another. What matters is not the specific technique used, but how small weaknesses connect and compound over time.
Industry breach analyses such as Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report show that real-world attack paths rarely follow neat, linear diagrams. They bend and branch based on context, opportunity, and defensive gaps.
Step 1: Initial Access
Every attack path begins with a foothold. Initial access is the moment an attacker first gains a presence inside a target environment.
This access might come from a phishing email, an exposed service, reused credentials, or a misconfigured cloud resource. At this stage, access is usually limited and unstable. Attackers do not yet understand the environment they are in, and they avoid actions that could draw attention.
Initial access is not the breach itself. It is simply the opening move.
Step 2: Discovery and Enumeration
Once inside, attackers shift their focus from entry to understanding. Discovery is the process of learning what systems exist, how they are connected, and what opportunities are available.
During this stage, attackers identify user accounts, services, permissions, and trust relationships. They are trying to answer basic questions. What kind of system is this? What does it talk to? What level of access do I actually have?
This stage often generates subtle signals. Unusual commands, unexpected queries, or new network connections may appear. For defenders, discovery activity is frequently the first chance to detect an intrusion if behavioural monitoring is in place.
Step 3: Privilege Expansion
Limited access rarely allows attackers to achieve their objectives. The next step in most attack paths is expanding privileges or access scope.
Privilege expansion does not always mean becoming an administrator. Sometimes it means accessing another user account, another service, or another system that provides more trust or visibility. Attackers take advantage of weak permissions, inherited trust, and misconfigurations rather than relying solely on exploits.
At this point, the attack path begins to stabilise. The attacker is no longer just present. They are gaining control.
Step 4: Lateral Movement
With improved access, attackers look outward. Lateral movement is how they spread through an environment, moving from one system to another.
This stage relies heavily on trust relationships. Systems that are designed to work together often trust each other implicitly. When segmentation is weak, attackers can pivot from a low-value system to far more sensitive assets.
Lateral movement is where small design decisions become major risks. One compromised endpoint can quietly become a gateway to an entire network.
Step 5: Objective Execution
Every attack path has an end goal. Once attackers reach the systems or data they want, they act.
Objectives vary. Some attackers focus on data exfiltration, others on persistence for long-term access, and others on disruption or sabotage. By this stage, the attack may finally be detected, but often only after meaningful damage has occurred.
Understanding earlier steps in the path is what allows teams to prevent reaching this point at all.
Why Attack Paths Matter More Than Individual Techniques
Techniques change constantly. New tools appear, exploits are patched, and tactics evolve. Attack paths, however, remain consistent because they are driven by how systems are designed and how people work.
This is why modern breach investigations and reports, such as those published annually by Verizon in the Data Breach Investigations Report, emphasise chains of events rather than single failures. Real incidents rarely hinge on one mistake. They succeed because multiple small issues align.
For defenders, this means breaking paths is more effective than chasing techniques. For offensive learners, it means understanding strategy matters more than memorising tools.
Learning Attack Paths Safely
Attack paths should never be practised on real systems. Exploring them safely requires controlled environments designed for learning.
Hands-on offensive training paths allow learners to experience how attack paths unfold without crossing legal or ethical boundaries. These environments focus on understanding progression, decision points, and impact rather than raw exploitation.
The Junior Penetration Tester learning path introduces attack path thinking in a structured, guided way, helping learners understand how individual actions connect into a broader breach narrative.
This type of practice builds intuition that transfers across both red and blue team roles.
Closing Perspective
Real-world breaches are not single events. They are stories that unfold over time, shaped by access, discovery, trust, and opportunity. Understanding attack paths reveals how small weaknesses combine into major incidents and why early intervention matters.
Whether you are learning offensive security or defending production systems, thinking in terms of attack paths provides a clearer, more realistic view of how breaches actually happen.
Nick O'Grady