Overview
US security leaders often commission a red team to answer a board-level question: would we spot a real intrusion in time to act? With SEC registrants facing a four-business-day Form 8-K clock once an incident is judged material, and NYDFS entities a 72-hour reporting window for many events, detection speed is a governance matter. We run the exercise remotely under rules agreed in writing.
A red team assessment is an exercise in realizm. Rather than enumerating weaknesses, a small team agrees an objective with your leadership, reaching a critical system, accessing a sensitive dataset, demonstrating fraud, and then pursues it the way a determined adversary would, choosing whichever combination of phishing, external exposure, physical access or network movement gets there with the least noise. The breadth of a standard pentest is traded for the depth and stealth of a real intrusion.
What the exercise measures is your defense as a whole. A vulnerability only matters here if it advances the objective, so the findings are not a list of issues but a story: how initial access was gained, how it was expanded, and crucially, where your monitoring saw it, where it did not, and how your responders reacted to what they did see. That makes the assessment as much a test of your detection and response capability as of your controls.
We run these engagements under strict rules of engagement agreed in writing, with named safety contacts and clear boundaries, because the activity is deliberately realiztic. Throughout, we work defensively and record our actions so the exercise can be replayed. The debrief maps every step to MITRE ATT&CK and compares it against what your defenders logged, turning the result into concrete improvements for both your controls and your response.
How US engagements run
- Delivered remotely from India, 9.5 hours ahead of US Eastern in US daylight time and 10.5 hours in winter; calls and testing windows are set around your time zone at scoping
- Fixed-price proposals in US dollars, with scope, dates and the free retest written in before any work begins
- Written authorization signed by someone with authority over every target, because the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and state laws make permission the dividing line
- Reports that name the requirement a test supports, such as PCI DSS 11.4, the FTC Safeguards Rule or SOC 2, without claiming a QSA, ASV or C3PAO role we don't hold
What's included
Our approach
- Scoping & rulesWe agree objectives, boundaries and safety contacts in writing before starting.
- ReconnaissanceWe gather intelligence to plan the quietest realiztic path to the objective.
- ExecutionWe pursue the objective across vectors, recording every action as we go.
- Detection analysisWe compare our activity against what your defenders logged and acted on.
- Debrief & replayWe walk your blue team through the full timeline mapped to MITRE ATT&CK.
What you receive
- Narrative of the full attack from access to objective
- Detection and response gap analysis
- Timeline mapped to MITRE ATT&CK
- Prioritized improvements for controls and response
- Replay walkthrough with your defensive team
Standards & frameworks
- MITRE ATT&CK
- TIBER-style intelligence-led testing
- PTES
- NIST SP 800-115
- CVSS v4.0
Frequently asked questions
How is a red team different from a penetration test?
A pentest aims for broad coverage of a defined scope and lists every flaw it finds. A red team pursues a specific objective across any available path, stealthily, to measure detection and response. One tells you what is weak; the other tells you whether you would catch a real attacker.
Should our defenders know it is happening?
Usually only a small, named group knows, so the response you observe is genuine. We always agree safety contacts who can confirm the exercise if real alarm is raised, which keeps the test realiztic without risking a real incident response being triggered unnecessarily.
Is a red team right for us yet?
It gives most value once you already have monitoring and a response capability to measure. If those are still maturing, a series of penetration tests usually delivers more, and we will say so honestly during scoping rather than sell an exercise you are not ready for.
Is a red team or phishing exercise lawful in the US?
It should only happen with written authorization from the organization that owns the systems. The federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and state computer-crime laws treat unauthorized access seriously, so targets, limits, safety contacts and stop conditions are signed before any activity. Ask your counsel about your own position.
How does adversary simulation relate to SEC and NYDFS reporting?
Once an SEC registrant decides an incident is material, it has four business days to file under Form 8-K Item 1.05, and NYDFS Part 500 generally expects cybersecurity events to be reported within 72 hours. A red or purple team exercise shows whether your team would detect and escalate an intrusion fast enough to make those calls.