Adversary Simulations
Red-team and purple-team operations modeled around the threats most relevant to your business. We test whether prevention, detection, and response hold up against realistic attack paths.
“Detection coverage is not the same as resilience.”
Security tools may generate alerts, but that does not prove your team can detect, investigate, and contain a real adversary. Adversary simulations test the full path from initial access to objective completion so gaps become visible before an incident does.
Where simulations create signal.
Each scenario is shaped around the threat model, business objective, defender maturity, and level of collaboration needed for the engagement.
Assumed-Breach
Start from a controlled foothold to test lateral movement, privilege escalation, detection coverage, containment paths, and response decisions after initial access.
Objective-Based Operations
Scenario-driven operations built around a defined business objective, such as access to sensitive data, identity dominance, cloud compromise, or operational disruption.
TTP-Based Testing
Testing mapped to adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures relevant to your industry, environment, and detection priorities.
Purple Teaming
Collaborative exercises where offensive actions, defensive telemetry, and detection tuning happen in tight feedback loops with your security team.
Physical & Social Engineering
Controlled testing of human, physical, and procedural controls through approved scenarios such as phishing, vishing, pretexting, or facility access attempts.
Continuous Adversary Simulations
Recurring simulations that revisit priority attack paths, validate new detections, exercise response processes, and track defensive improvement over time.
How we turn scenarios into measured resilience.
Each simulation is designed around the objective, rules of engagement, defender visibility, and evidence needed to understand where prevention, detection, and response hold.
From scope
to debrief.
Each phase has defined entry criteria, evidence requirements, and hand-off points. Your team sees findings as we discover them, not in a final report dump.
- 01 — Threat Model & Scenario Design
- 02 — Access Model & Operational Setup
- 03 — Adversary Emulation & Control Validation
- 04 — Objective Testing & Response Observation
- 05 — Debrief, Detection Tuning & Improvement Plan
Threat Model & Scenario Design
Define the business objective, relevant adversary behaviors, in-scope systems, defender visibility, collaboration model, safety limits, and success criteria.
Access Model & Operational Setup
Establish the approved starting point, such as assumed breach, controlled credentials, external access, phishing scenario, or collaborative purple-team execution.
Adversary Emulation & Control Validation
Execute the agreed tactics, techniques, and procedures while observing which controls prevent, detect, delay, or miss the activity.
Objective Testing & Response Observation
Progress toward the defined objective where scope allows, documenting attack paths, detection points, investigation flow, escalation decisions, and response friction.
Debrief, Detection Tuning & Improvement Plan
Replay the operation with stakeholders, map evidence to detection and response gaps, prioritize improvements, and define how progress should be measured over time.
Evidence from the operation.
Each simulation produces artifacts that show what happened, what was observed, what was missed, and how prevention, detection, and response can improve.
Operation Narrative
A clear timeline of the simulated operation, including objectives, actions taken, control interactions, observed detections, and decision points.
ATT&CK Technique Mapping
Mapping of executed behaviors to MITRE ATT&CK so teams can understand which techniques were prevented, detected, delayed, or missed.
Prevention, Detection & Response Findings
Findings that explain where controls worked, where visibility broke down, where investigation slowed, and what should change.
Stakeholder Debrief
A structured review with leadership, security operations, engineering, and other relevant teams to replay the operation and align on priorities.
Improvement Roadmap
A prioritized plan for detection tuning, control hardening, response process changes, validation exercises, and future simulation work.
Common questions
The questions we hear most when scoping adversary simulations engagements.
A penetration test primarily validates exploitable weaknesses in a defined scope. An adversary simulation tests how your people, processes, and controls perform against a realistic attack scenario. The goal is not only to find issues, but to measure prevention, detection, investigation, response, and decision-making.
Simulations can be structured as red-team operations, purple-team exercises, assumed-breach scenarios, TTP-based testing, objective-based operations, or approved physical and social engineering. The right model depends on what you need to measure and how much defender visibility you want during the engagement.
That depends on the visibility model. Some engagements are limited-knowledge to test real detection and escalation paths. Others are collaborative, with defenders participating directly so telemetry, detections, and response workflows can be tuned during the exercise.
Duration depends on objectives, scope, access model, and collaboration level. Focused purple-team or assumed-breach exercises may run one to two weeks, while broader red-team or objective-based operations often require several weeks including planning, execution, and debrief.
Then we adjust the model. Many teams get more value from an assumed-breach scenario, purple-team exercise, or detection-focused simulation before running a limited-knowledge red team. The engagement should meet your current maturity level and produce useful next steps.
Every simulation runs under agreed rules of engagement with authorized scope, approved techniques, safety limits, emergency contacts, escalation paths, and stop conditions. High-risk actions are discussed in advance and constrained to the level your environment can support.
Yes. Recurring simulations can revisit priority attack paths, validate new detections, exercise response workflows, or support an annual attack-credit program. Scope, cadence, and rules of engagement can be refreshed as your environment and security program change.
Where resilience work can go next.
Use the simulation results to validate exposed systems, build repeatable offensive workflows, or improve telemetry and detection coverage around the paths that mattered most.
Penetration Testing
Practical offensive security testing across applications, networks, cloud, AI systems, and connected devices. We find the attack paths scanners miss and explain what matters first.
Learn moreOffensive Security Engineering
Engineering support for teams that need more than reports. We build tools, workflows, and test infrastructure that make offensive security faster and more reliable.
Learn moreSecurity Analytics
Detection engineering, threat hunting, and data pipelines that turn telemetry into decisions. We help teams find signal, reduce noise, and measure coverage.
Learn moreBring the scenario.
We will shape the operation.
Tell us what you need to measure, which teams should have visibility, and what constraints matter. We will define the rules of engagement, model the adversary behavior, and produce evidence your team can use to improve prevention, detection, and response.
Authorized scenario. Controlled operation. Clear evidence for better defense.