Red Team & Blue Team Exercises

Learning Through Adversarial Simulation

Reading about cyber attacks in threat intelligence reports provides theoretical knowledge. Defending against actual attacks develops practical capability. Red team exercises provide the most realistic training possible short of experiencing genuine adversary operations—your security operations center (SOC) detects and responds to simulated attacks conducted by offensive operators using real-world adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). These exercises identify gaps in detection capabilities, test incident response playbooks under pressure, and build organizational muscle memory for crisis response. The mistakes made during exercises—missed alerts, slow escalation, incomplete containment—are lessons learned safely rather than catastrophic failures during actual attacks.

Red Team: Adversary Emulation

Our red team operators are veterans of military cyber commands and intelligence agency offensive programs. They don't simply run automated tools; they emulate specific nation-state adversary groups documented in classified threat intelligence. Exercises simulate multi-stage attacks—initial access through spearphishing, privilege escalation through credential theft, lateral movement across network segments, and data exfiltration mimicking intelligence collection operations. Red teams operate with the same patience as real adversaries, conducting reconnaissance over days, establishing persistent access mechanisms, and attempting to achieve strategic objectives like accessing classified systems or disrupting critical infrastructure. Your defenders face realistic threats, not artificial scenarios.

Blue Team: Detection & Response

While red teams attack, blue teams defend—your SOC personnel, incident responders, and security engineers working to detect and contain simulated attacks. Blue team exercises validate whether your security architecture performs as designed. Do SIEM alerts trigger for adversary TTPs? Can SOC analysts distinguish genuine attacks from false positives? Do incident response playbooks provide effective guidance under stress? Are network segmentation and access controls preventing lateral movement? These questions receive definitive answers through exercises, with performance gaps documented for remediation. Post-exercise reviews include detailed timelines showing exactly when adversary actions occurred versus when defenders detected them, quantifying detection gaps requiring improvement.

Purple Team: Collaborative Improvement

Traditional red/blue exercises are zero-sum games—attackers win or defenders win. Purple team exercises are collaborative, with offensive and defensive teams working together toward shared objectives: improving organizational security capability. Red team operators execute attacks while explaining techniques to blue team defenders in real-time. 'We're now attempting credential dumping using Mimikatz—do you see the process execution in your EDR?' This collaborative approach dramatically accelerates blue team learning, transforming abstract threat intelligence into concrete defensive measures. Purple team exercises develop lasting capabilities—SOC analysts who have defended against realistic attacks are permanently more effective at detecting real adversaries.

Cyber Exercise Training Programs

• Red team adversary emulation by cleared operators
• Blue team SOC and incident response training
• Purple team collaborative capability development
• Custom scenarios for your threat environment
• Exercises on your actual operational networks
• Detailed performance reporting and gap analysis
• Post-exercise remediation recommendations
• Recurring programs for continuous improvement