״Defenders think in lists, attackers think in graphs,” said John Lambert from Microsoft, distilling the fundamental difference in mindset between those who defend IT systems and those who try to compromise them.
The traditional approach for defenders is to list security gaps directly related to their assets in the network and eliminate as many as possible, starting with the most critical. Adversaries, in contrast, start with the end goal in mind and focus on charting the path toward a breach. They will generally look for the weakest link in the security chain to break in and progress the attack from there all the way to the crown jewels.
