Purple Team Assessment

Coordinated offensive testing and defensive validation to assess how effectively your security monitoring and response capabilities detect and respond to real-world attack techniques.

Strengthen Detection and Response Through Collaborative Testing

  • Coordinated Offensive and Defensive Testing

    Collaborative exercises where offensive actions are executed while defensive teams observe detection, alerting, and response behavior in real-time.

  • Assess Detection and Response Capabilities

    Evaluate how effectively your security monitoring and response capabilities identify and respond to real-world attack techniques.

  • Improve Defensive Coverage

    Identify gaps in visibility, strengthen monitoring coverage, and enhance your organization's ability to detect and respond to malicious activities.

Purple team assessments involve coordinated offensive testing and defensive validation to assess how effectively your security monitoring and response capabilities detect and respond to real-world attack techniques. Testing is performed in collaboration with defensive teams and focuses on executing targeted attack actions against in-scope systems while observing detection, alerting, and response behavior.

Unlike red team assessments that test detection in a covert manner, purple team exercises are collaborative and transparent. The objective is to identify gaps in visibility, improve defensive coverage, and strengthen your organization's ability to identify and respond to malicious activities through real-time feedback and iterative improvement.

We work closely with your blue team to execute attack techniques, observe how they are detected and responded to, and provide immediate feedback on gaps and opportunities for improvement. This collaborative approach helps strengthen both offensive and defensive capabilities while building stronger relationships between security teams.

Assessment Benefits

  • Collaborative approach that strengthens both offensive and defensive capabilities.
  • Real-time feedback on detection and response effectiveness during attack execution.
  • Identifies visibility gaps and blind spots in security monitoring and alerting.
  • Improves defensive coverage through targeted attack actions and observation.
  • Strengthens the organization's ability to identify and respond to malicious activities.
  • Delivers actionable recommendations to enhance detection engineering and response processes.

Ready to Strengthen Your Detection and Response?

Let Vilkas coordinate offensive testing with your defensive teams to identify visibility gaps and improve your ability to detect and respond to real-world attacks.

Purple Team Assessment — FAQ

Answers about purple team methodology, objectives, participation, and outcomes.

How is a purple team different from a red team?▾
A red team assessment tests detection and response in a covert manner, simulating a real adversary without the blue team knowing. A purple team assessment is collaborative and transparent, with offensive actions executed while defensive teams observe detection, alerting, and response behavior in real-time. The goal is to improve defensive capabilities through immediate feedback and iterative improvement.
What is the objective of a purple team assessment?▾
The objective is to identify gaps in visibility, improve defensive coverage, and strengthen your organization's ability to identify and respond to malicious activities. By executing targeted attack actions while observing detection and response, we can provide immediate feedback on what is working well and where improvements are needed.
Who participates in a purple team assessment?▾
Purple team assessments involve collaboration between offensive testers (red team) and defensive teams (blue team). The blue team is aware of the testing and actively monitors for detection and response. This collaborative approach helps strengthen both offensive and defensive capabilities while building stronger relationships between security teams.
What attack techniques are tested?▾
We perform testing across the MITRE ATT&CK Matrix for Enterprise, covering key techniques and subtechniques uniquely for each environment we cover. The amount of techniques and subtechniques varies by environment. We execute targeted attack actions against in-scope systems based on your objectives and concerns, which can include initial access techniques, lateral movement, privilege escalation, data access, and other attack techniques relevant to your environment.
How long does a purple team assessment take?▾
Timelines vary based on scope and objectives. Typical assessments range from 1-2 weeks, with testing phases coordinated with your defensive teams. We plan the assessment timeline during scoping to ensure adequate time for execution, observation, and feedback, tailored to each environment.
What deliverables do we receive?▾
You receive an executive summary, detailed findings on detection and response gaps, prioritized recommendations for improving defensive coverage, and a live debrief. The report includes a detailed date and timestamped log of each technique carried out and whether it was successful or not and detected or not. This log is then used to inform findings and gaps. We also provide actionable guidance on enhancing detection engineering and response processes based on observed gaps and opportunities for improvement.
Can we do both a red team and purple team assessment?▾
Yes. Many organizations start with a red team assessment to test true detection and response capabilities, then follow with a purple team assessment for collaborative improvement. This approach allows you to first identify gaps in a realistic scenario, then work collaboratively to strengthen defenses.