Case Study: Large Middle Eastern Bank detects malicious activity and blocks attacker movement with Illusive

How Illusive Networks’ Forensic Analysis Uncovered Aggressive Attempts To Insert Malicious Tools And Breach Servers In A Bank’s Network

Large Middle Eastern Bank worked with Illusive on a 22-day red team exercise to test its network defenses against a highly credible third-party penetration testing team. The bank needed a way to detect advanced lateral movement, malicious tool deployment, and attempts to access sensitive systems and credentials inside its Citrix and server environment.

Illusive implemented its agentless deception technology across the bank’s 5,000-node network, planting tailored deceptions on endpoints, servers, shared folders, and credentials. The solution generated high-fidelity alerts and real-time forensic data that uncovered malicious activity on multiple days, including tool staging, attempted lateral movement, and aggressive logon attempts against critical accounts. Illusive’s detections helped the bank’s SOC identify true attacks with 100% confidence and showed the platform could stop sophisticated adversaries early, within three lateral moves and with 99% reliability.