Expose security blind spots
Identify attack paths and techniques that bypass traditional defences
Adversary Simulation
Red Teaming
Simulate sophisticated, multi-stage attacks to assess your organisation's ability to detect, respond to, and mitigate real-world adversaries.
Discuss an engagement- Objective
- Agreed business objective
- Maturity
- Mature defences
- Approach
- Covert, full-scope
- Result
- Attack-path evidence
Red teaming with SilentGrid
SilentGrid's red team engagements test whether an adversary can reach an agreed business objective within your environment. The team follows realistic attack paths across the authorised scope, assessing how security controls and response teams perform as the intrusion progresses.
Each exercise documents the attack path and the gaps in detection and response, with remediation guidance for the defensive team. The findings give security leaders evidence to prioritise improvements and validate them through follow-up testing.
Objectives and outcomes
Test detection capabilities
Assess SOC, IR teams, and SIEM effectiveness in detecting threats
Evaluate security ROI
Quantify effectiveness of security tools and incident response processes
Uplift defensive teams
Provide tactical feedback to strengthen detection and response
Is red teaming the right fit?
Red teaming suits organisations that already have something to test. If detection and response are still being built, an exercise designed to evade them will tell you little you do not already know.
Red teaming fits when
- Operate mature security programs and want to test their full defensive capabilities.
- Need to evaluate how well their SOC, IR and blue teams handle real-world threats.
- Seek to identify unknown attack paths beyond vulnerability assessments.
- Require executive-level insights into security resilience and ROI.
How the engagement runs
Four stages, from agreeing the objective through to an optional replay with your defensive team.
- 01
Activity planning
- The objective and its evidence are agreed first, so both teams work to one shared reference: scope and boundaries, the agreed starting access, the business outcome under test, and the evidence the exercise should produce
- A small Control Group is briefed and stays in contact throughout. Flags mark milestone targets along each scenario, and where a flag is not reached a concession turns it into an assumed breach test so coverage continues across the whole attack chain
- 02
Execution
- Attacks follow the tactics, techniques and procedures of the threat actors being simulated
- Weaknesses are exploited in a realistic but controlled manner aligned to your risk tolerance, with approval requested before targeting systems or accounts carrying high operational risk
-
Reconnaissance and target selection
- Passive and active intelligence gathering to profile external attack surfaces
- Open-source intelligence (OSINT) and social engineering to identify exploitable vectors
-
Initial compromise
- Targeting externally accessible infrastructure, third-party services, and employee endpoints
- Techniques include spear phishing, supply chain compromise, and application exploitation
-
Persistence and privilege escalation
- Establishing footholds within compromised environments
- Persistence techniques bypassing EDR and maintaining access through custom tooling
-
Lateral movement and internal reconnaissance
- Credential harvesting, Active Directory exploitation, and pivoting across networks
- Identifying sensitive systems, mapping internal environments, and expanding access
-
Objective execution and exfiltration
- Attaining predefined objectives such as data exfiltration, domain dominance, or insider threat emulation
- Testing data loss prevention (DLP) mechanisms and network monitoring tools
-
Reporting and knowledge transfer
- Comprehensive documentation of findings, attack paths, and remediation guidance with executive and technical reporting
- 03
Post-exercise debrief
- The Attack Execution Report is shared with the Control Group and circulated on a need-to-know basis
- Two debriefs follow: an executive debrief covering real-world impact and systemic issues, and a technical debrief walking the defensive team through the report
- 04
Replay attacks (optional)
- Attacks from the simulation are replayed alongside the defensive team to verify that detections and response measures now fire
- The feedback is used to finalise remediation
Run it continuously
Run it again, or run it all year.
Most clients start with a single red team. Where the environment changes faster than an annual exercise can track, CAOS (Continuous Adversary Operations Service) runs red team cycles through the year and retests each fix.
Explore CAOSDeliverables and reporting
The engagement report is delivered within five business days of the exercise concluding, alongside the execution logs and debriefs:
Engagement report
Detailed breakdown of attack paths, vulnerabilities exploited, and post-exploitation activity
MITRE ATT&CK mapping
Each step mapped to framework to highlight gaps in detection and response
Executive summary
High-level reporting summarising business risks and strategic recommendations
Technical debrief
In-depth review with blue teams and SOC analysts on techniques and detections
Attack execution logs
Timestamped logs of key actions taken during the exercise, so internally raised incidents can be cross-checked and attributed, and gaps in detection tooling identified
Proof-of-concept payloads
Custom payloads used to bypass EDRs and detection rules where applicable
Post-engagement support
Ongoing assistance during remediation and validation of security improvements
Why SilentGrid
SilentGrid's consultants are hand-picked, and between them they have delivered red team engagements globally over decades, including CBEST for UK financial institutions and CORIE engagements in Australia. Their sector experience covers banking and financial services, insurance, government, critical infrastructure and healthcare.
Consultants find 0-day vulnerabilities in commercial software and speak or teach at security conferences. That research produces the custom tooling used to bypass EDR and network controls, and keeps techniques current with the threat actor being simulated. The methodology follows concepts set out in NIST, OWASP, PTES and OSSTMM.
CREST ANZApproved company Individual credentials across our team include
- OSEE
- OSCE3
- OSED
- OSEP
- OSWE
- GXPN
- CRTO
- CRTE
- CRTP
- OSCP
Handala Hack and Friends
On the 11th of March 2026, the Iranian aligned Handala Hack (Handala) group claimed responsibility for a disruptive cyberattack which affected the medical multinational corporation, Stryker.
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Common questions
What is red teaming?
Red teaming tests an organisation the way a real adversary would: covertly, across the authorised scope, working towards an agreed business objective. Only a small Control Group knows the exercise is running, so the result shows how security controls and the defensive team performed as the intrusion progressed, with the attack path mapped to MITRE ATT&CK and remediation guidance for each gap.
What does a red team engagement test?
A red team engagement tests whether an adversary can reach an agreed business objective inside your environment. The team follows realistic attack paths across the authorised scope and assesses how security controls and response teams perform as the intrusion progresses.
How is red teaming different from penetration testing?
Penetration testing finds weaknesses in a defined system, such as an application or an internal network. A red team engagement works towards an agreed objective across the authorised scope and measures detection and response along the way. The red team vs penetration test guide compares them side by side.
When is an organisation ready for red teaming?
Red teaming suits organisations already running a mature security program with a SOC, incident response or blue team capability to exercise. Where detection and response are still being established, purple teaming builds those capabilities collaboratively.
How long does a red team engagement take?
Red team engagements run over weeks or months, simulating sophisticated actors across the authorised scope. The exact duration depends on the agreed objective and the scope of the exercise.
Who inside our organisation needs to know?
Only the Control Group: a small group of senior staff with the business knowledge and authority to make risk-based decisions during the exercise. Keeping the defensive team unaware is what makes the test of detection and incident response realistic.
Can we verify that the gaps were fixed?
Yes. Attacks from the simulation can be replayed alongside your defensive team to confirm that detections and response measures now fire. This optional replay phase is delivered as purple teaming and the feedback is used to finalise remediation.
What do we receive at the end?
A comprehensive engagement report documenting the attack path, MITRE ATT&CK mapping of the techniques used, an executive summary, a technical debrief, proof-of-concept payloads and remediation support.
Can red teaming run as an ongoing program?
Yes. CAOS, SilentGrid's continuous red teaming service, re-tests remediated attack paths, introduces new techniques and TTPs as they emerge, and simulates evolving threat groups against your current defences.
Ready to test your defences?
Get started with red teaming
Tell us what you need the engagement to prove, and we will scope it against your risk tolerance and defensive maturity.
Scoping starts with the objective and the authorised scope. Once the exercise concludes you receive the engagement report within five business days, the attack execution logs, and separate executive and technical debriefs.