What is the primary goal of the Maintaining Access phase?

The primary goal of the Maintaining Access phase is to retain control of the compromised system. After successfully exploiting a system and gaining access, an ethical hacker or security professional aims to ensure that they can continue to exploit that access in the future. This might involve installing backdoors, creating user accounts, or implementing other methods that allow them to return to the system without needing to go through the initial exploitation process again. Maintaining access is critical for both ethical hackers, who need to ensure they can provide ongoing support or recommendations for security improvements, as well as for malicious actors who seek to exploit systems for nefarious purposes.

The focus here is on ensuring ongoing control, which contrasts with other phases such as analysis or cleanup, which do not prioritize retention of access.