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Capability

Red Teaming

A goal-oriented adversary emulation that tests whether your organization would detect and stop a determined attacker, rather than whether a given system has a vulnerability.

Red teaming is a goal-oriented adversary emulation. Rather than enumerating vulnerabilities in a defined scope, it tests whether your organization would detect and stop a determined attacker pursuing an objective that matters to your business.

The Question a Red Team Actually Answers

Most security programs are measured by what they have: tooling deployed, controls documented, findings closed. A red team measures something harder and more useful: what happens when somebody capable, patient and motivated tries to reach a specific outcome inside your environment.

The results are frequently uncomfortable in a productive way. Detection tooling that generates thousands of alerts a day turns out not to fire on the technique that matters. A segmentation boundary that exists in the architecture holds for automated scanning and not for an operator who takes their time. An identity workflow designed for convenience becomes the fastest route in. None of those are visible from a control inventory.

Because red teaming assumes a capable adversary, it is most valuable to organizations that have already done the fundamentals. If your penetration testing still surfaces straightforward findings, or a maturity level assessment shows gaps in asset inventory or identity controls, those come first. We will tell you if that is where you are, because a red team that succeeds trivially is an expensive way to confirm what you already suspected.

  • Objective-based engagements against outcomes you define
  • Covert or purple team delivery, depending on what you need to learn
  • Detection and response measured at every phase, not only at the end
  • Findings mapped to MITRE ATT&CK so improvements are testable

For continuous assurance between engagements, adversary simulation exercises specific techniques on an ongoing basis. Get in touch to discuss scope.

A red team operations room lit for a live engagement
Red Teaming

Full-spectrum adversary emulation, end to end.

Kill chain

How a Red Team Engagement Unfolds

A red team follows the same phases a real intrusion does, against objectives you define, with detection and response measured at every step.

01

Reconnaissance and Threat Modeling

The opening phase, where we study your organization the way a capable adversary would: people, infrastructure, suppliers and digital footprint, before touching anything.

Our methodology

Open source intelligence across staff, technology, job postings, code repositories, certificates and breach corpora, combined with AI-augmented attack surface discovery. The output is a threat model naming who we would impersonate and where the softest routes in are likely to be, aligned to MITRE ATT&CK reconnaissance and resource development.

  • OSINT
  • Attack surface mapping
  • Threat modeling
  • MITRE ATT&CK
02

Initial Access

Establishing the first foothold, using the routes real intrusions actually begin with rather than the ones that are easiest to demonstrate.

Our methodology

Targeted phishing and pretext calling against identity and credential reset workflows, exposed service exploitation, and where authorized, physical entry. Each attempt is logged with timestamps so your team can reconcile what fired against what happened.

  • Targeted phishing
  • Identity workflow abuse
  • Exposed services
  • Physical entry
03

Command and Control

Establishing durable, covert communications from inside your environment, which is where most detection programs are genuinely tested.

Our methodology

We use tradecraft that reflects current adversary behavior, including domain fronting where appropriate, protocol blending, and beacon timing designed to sit beneath threshold-based alerting. Whether your tooling catches it is a finding either way.

  • Covert channels
  • Beacon tradecraft
  • Egress testing
  • Detection evasion
04

Privilege Escalation and Lateral Movement

Turning a foothold into meaningful access, which in most organizations is a shorter journey than the architecture diagram implies.

Our methodology

Credential harvesting, Kerberos abuse, delegation and certificate services misconfiguration, and movement across trust boundaries between domains, forests and cloud tenants. Hybrid identity between Active Directory and Entra ID receives particular attention.

  • Credential access
  • Kerberos abuse
  • Hybrid identity
  • Trust boundaries
05

Actions on Objectives

Reaching the outcome you defined at the outset, whether that is access to a specific data set, a payment capability, an operational system or an executive mailbox.

Our methodology

We demonstrate the objective safely and reversibly, with evidence, rather than causing the impact itself. Data exfiltration is simulated with synthetic or marked material, never with your real records.

  • Objective-based
  • Safe demonstration
  • Simulated exfiltration
  • Business impact
06

Assumed Breach Testing

Starting from the position that the perimeter has already fallen, which maximizes coverage of the internal controls that matter most and is the right choice for organizations who accept that initial access is inevitable.

Our methodology

We begin with a standard user account or a managed workstation and work outward, giving the sharpest available read on internal segmentation, detection coverage and how far an intruder gets before anything fires.

  • Internal defense
  • Detection coverage
  • Segmentation
  • Maximum coverage
07

Purple Team Collaboration

Running the engagement alongside your defenders rather than against them, turning each technique into a measured detection and response exercise.

Our methodology

Techniques are executed openly and in sequence, with your team observing what their tooling produces. Gaps in telemetry, alerting and response are identified and retested in the same session, so improvements are validated immediately rather than assumed.

  • Detection engineering
  • Telemetry gaps
  • Immediate retest
  • Team uplift
AI-augmented methodology

Machine Speed, Operator Judgment

Automation covers the volume so our operators can spend their time where human judgment wins. Every result is verified by an expert before it reaches you.

Our work aligns to recognized standards including the OWASP Testing Guide and ASVS, PTES, NIST SP 800-115, OSSTMM and MITRE ATT&CK.

How the platform works
01

Autonomous reconnaissance

Continuous mapping of your external attack surface, surfacing new exposures the moment they appear.

02

AI-assisted exploit chaining

Individual weaknesses connected into realistic, high-impact attack paths a real adversary would take.

03

Continuous validation

Findings reflect your live environment, not a stale snapshot, so you act on what is true today.

04

AI-accelerated reporting

Evidence turned into clear, prioritized guidance in a fraction of the usual time, every result human-verified.

How an engagement runs

A tested process, not a black box

Every StrikeCyber engagement follows the same disciplined path, so you always know where you are and what comes next.

  1. 01

    Scope & kick-off

    We agree targets, rules of engagement, timing and success criteria. No surprises, fixed scope, fixed price.

  2. 02

    Offensive testing

    AI-augmented reconnaissance and manual exploitation across your networks, applications, cloud and people.

  3. 03

    Real-time critical alerts

    Anything critical or actively exploitable is escalated the moment we find it, not weeks later in a report.

  4. 04

    Report & debrief

    A prioritized report with reproducible steps and a live debrief for your technical and executive stakeholders.

  5. 05

    Retest & validate

    Once you remediate, we retest to prove the fix holds. Typically one business day per component.

What you receive

Deliverables Built to Be Acted On

Reports engineers can execute against and boards can understand, backed by a live portal from kick-off to retest.

01

Prioritized findings

Every issue ranked by real-world risk and exploitability, not raw scanner severity, so your team fixes what matters first.

02

Reproducible evidence

Step-by-step proof and artefacts for each finding, so engineers can confirm, reproduce and remediate without guesswork.

03

Risk ratings & impact

Clear likelihood and business-impact ratings, mapped to CVE identifiers and the controls behind each weakness.

04

Remediation guidance

Practical, environment-specific fixes and hardening advice, written for your stack and your tooling.

05

Board-ready summary

An executive briefing that translates technical risk into business language for leadership and directors.

06

Live client portal

Track findings, remediation status and retests in real time, with critical issues escalated the moment we find them.

FAQ

Red Teaming FAQs

What is the difference between a red team and a penetration test?

A penetration test asks how many exploitable weaknesses exist in a defined scope. A red team asks whether your organization would notice and stop a determined adversary pursuing a specific objective. The scope is broader, the tradecraft is quieter, and the measure of success is your detection and response rather than a finding count. Most organizations should be confident in their penetration testing results before commissioning a red team.

Do our defenders know the engagement is happening?

That is your decision, and both approaches are valid. A fully covert engagement gives the most honest read on detection, with only a small number of people aware. A purple team runs openly alongside your defenders and produces faster improvement. Many organizations run covert first and follow with a purple team to close what was missed.

Is red teaming safe for production environments?

Yes, when scoped properly. Objectives are demonstrated rather than executed: we prove access to data rather than taking it, and exfiltration is simulated with synthetic or marked material. Rules of engagement, exclusions and an abort process are agreed in writing before anything begins, and safety-critical and clinical systems are excluded absolutely.

How long does a red team engagement take?

Typically four to eight weeks, though the calendar time exceeds the effort because quiet tradecraft is deliberately slow. Rushing a red team defeats its purpose: an adversary who moves at machine speed is easy to detect, which is precisely why real ones do not.

What do we get at the end?

An attack narrative describing what happened in sequence, a detection timeline showing what your tooling saw against what actually occurred, evidence for each objective reached, and prioritized recommendations covering technology, process and people. The detection timeline is usually the most valuable artefact for a security team.

Who should not commission a red team yet?

Organizations without reliable asset inventory, patching and identity controls. A red team will succeed easily, which tells you nothing you did not already suspect and spends budget that would do more good elsewhere. In that situation a penetration test and a maturity assessment produce far better value first, and we will say so.

Ready to take the offensive?

StrikeCyber specializes in penetration testing and red teaming engagements that deliver actionable findings. Connect with us for a free consultation.

No obligation, no sales pressure. A senior operator replies within one business day.

(877) 657-8496Free Consultation