Test your people, process and technology the way a real attacker would.
CyVigilant red team assessments simulate full-spectrum adversary attacks — phishing, physical intrusion, assumed-breach, network exploitation — to validate whether your detection, response and containment capabilities hold under realistic conditions.
Adversary simulation across every attack vector.
Full-Scope Adversary Simulation
A coordinated campaign across technical, human and physical vectors — mimicking a real threat actor with a specific objective (data exfiltration, lateral movement to crown jewels, ransomware simulation).
Phishing & Social Engineering
Spear-phishing campaigns, vishing and pretexting scenarios designed for your employee population — tests awareness training and email gateway defences under realistic conditions.
Assumed-Breach Testing
Starting from a compromised endpoint credential, testers assess how far an attacker can move laterally, escalate privilege and access sensitive systems before being detected and contained.
Detection & Response Validation
Measures mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR) in real conditions. Evaluates your SOC, EDR and SIEM effectiveness against realistic adversary TTPs.
Physical Security Testing
On-site physical intrusion simulation — tailgating, badge cloning, dumpster diving — to validate perimeter controls and security-guard response protocols where in scope.
Debrief & Purple Team Session
Detailed findings debrief for the security team including a timeline of attacker actions, detection gaps and a purple-team session to tune detection rules based on actual TTPs used.
Realistic campaigns, controlled environment.
Red team engagements are coordinated with a small "white cell" (executives and legal only) while the security and IT teams are unaware — ensuring authentic detection and response conditions.
Objective & Scenario Definition
We define the adversary persona, crown-jewel targets and rules of engagement with the white cell. Timelines, out-of-scope assets and escalation contacts are confirmed.
Coordinated in secretInitial Access & Establishment
Testers attempt initial access via phishing, public-facing vulnerabilities and physical vectors, then establish persistence while evading detection.
MITRE ATT&CK mappedLateral Movement & Objective
Testers move laterally through the environment toward the defined crown-jewel target, documenting every pivot, detection gap and control failure.
Full chain documentedReport & Purple Team Debrief
Detailed attack timeline, detection gaps, control failures and actionable improvements. Purple team session helps your SOC tune detection for the TTPs demonstrated.
Purple team sessionWhat red teams reveal that pentests cannot.
BFSI — Assumed-Breach Test
Starting from a single phished credential, the red team reached a core-banking staging database in under 4 hours. MTTD: over 72 hours. SOC playbooks updated post-engagement.
- Crown-jewel database accessed in < 4 hrs
- Detection gap in SIEM identified and closed
- SOC MTTD reduced 80% post-remediation
SaaS — Full-Scope Campaign
A phishing campaign with a 23% click rate led to a beachhead, then lateral movement to a multi-tenant admin console. Infrastructure hardening and least-privilege rollout followed.
- Multi-tenant admin console accessed
- Least-privilege IAM rollout triggered
- Phishing simulation now quarterly
Red team assessment — frequently asked questions
A penetration test finds as many vulnerabilities as possible in a defined scope and timeframe. A red team engagement has a specific objective — reach crown jewels, simulate ransomware deployment, test a specific attacker scenario — and measures your detection and response capability, not just your vulnerability posture. Red teams are broader (multiple vectors simultaneously) and longer (weeks, not days).
A penetration test finds as many vulnerabilities as possible in a defined scope and timeframe. A red team engagement has a specific objective — reach crown jewels, simulate ransomware deployment, test a specific attacker scenario — and measures your detection and response capability, not just your vulnerability posture. Red teams are broader (multiple vectors simultaneously) and longer (weeks, not days).
By design, the security and IT teams are not informed. Only a small white cell (typically CEO/CTO/legal) is aware. This ensures authentic detection and response conditions — the most valuable signal from a red team engagement.
After the engagement, we run a structured purple team session where our red team walks your blue team through every TTP used, showing which were detected and which were not. Your team then tunes detection rules live against the actual techniques. This session is included in all CyVigilant red team engagements.
Effective red team engagements typically run a minimum of 2 weeks for a focused objective, and 4–6 weeks for a full-scope campaign including physical and social-engineering components. Shorter timelines compress realism and reduce the value of the assessment.
Is your organization ready for a red team?
Talk to a security expertFind out what a real attacker would find.
Book a scoping call for a red team assessment. We define the objective, design the campaign and deliver a debrief that strengthens your detection and response for years.