What is the concept of island hopping in the context of cybersecurity?

The concept of island hopping in cybersecurity refers to breaching multiple organizations' networks to achieve broader access or to reach a specific target, such as a higher-value entity. This tactic involves compromising less secure networks or systems that are connected to the target organization. Attackers use these compromised systems as footholds to launch further attacks on more valuable targets or to gather sensitive information from them.

In this context, the strategy is comparable to "hopping" between islands (representing different networks or organizations) to find an optimal route to a final destination. Attackers often leverage weaker defenses of secondary targets to infiltrate and eventually attack primary targets that may be more secure. The term highlights the necessity for organizations to understand not only their own security posture but also the potential vulnerabilities associated with their partners and supply chains. Therefore, this approach emphasizes the interconnected nature of networks and the risk posed by indirect access through less secure entities.

The other choices, such as moving across segments of the same network, exploiting virtual private networks, or conducting social engineering attacks, do not encapsulate the breadth and specific strategy involved in island hopping, which focuses on leveraging multiple networks rather than targeting a single network or employing other attack methods.