Purple teaming
You can be breached without knowing it. We help you change that.
A red team tests whether you can be compromised. Purple teaming tests whether you’d even know it was happening. We work alongside your security operations team by simulating real attacker behavior and measuring whether your defenses see it, understand it, and respond in time.
THE PROBLEM
Detection gaps don’t announce themselves.
Most organizations invest heavily in security tooling — EDR, SIEM, network monitoring — and assume that investment translates into visibility. It often doesn’t. Attacker techniques go undetected not because the tools aren’t there, but because the telemetry isn’t configured, the alert isn’t tuned, or the analyst doesn’t have the context to act.
By the time a breach is discovered, the attacker has often been present for weeks. Purple teaming closes that gap. Not by attacking covertly, but by working with your defenders to find and fix exactly what’s missing.
WHAT MAKES THIS DIFFERENT
Not covert. Collaborative.
Purple teaming isn’t about catching your SOC out. It’s about improving what they can see and do.
We simulate attacker behavior in a controlled, agreed manner by working directly with your security operations team to measure detection outcomes, identify gaps, and drive measurable improvement.
Every technique executed is mapped to MITRE ATT&CK and assessed against a defined detection outcome. Every engagement produces evidence, not just a score.
Engagement types
The right engagement type depends on your security maturity and what you need to learn. We scope this with you before anything starts.
Atomic purple team
FOUNDATIONAL
Individual attacker techniques executed in isolation. Confirms what your tooling logs, what alerts fire, and where your detection fundamentals need work. The right starting point for any organization building out their SOC.
APT scenario based
THREAT-ALIGNED
Realistic attack chains modelled on known adversary behavior. Tests whether your detection coverage holds up against the threat groups most relevant to your sector and risk profile.
Objective based
OBJECTIVE DRIVEN
Defined attacker objectives — source code exfiltration, domain admin access, cloud data extraction — tested under realistic conditions. Measures whether your SOC can identify and disrupt an attack in progress, not just individual techniques.
Red team follow-up
POST RED TEAM
Takes the techniques that succeeded in a previous red team engagement and replays them — testing whether your remediation worked and whether the same attack would be caught this time. The most realistic exercise available.
HOW WE APPROACH IT
Every technique gets a verdict.
Detection outcomes aren’t subjective. Every technique we execute is assessed against a defined classification. Progress is measurable, comparable across engagements, and tied directly to improvements your team can make.
Agreed before it starts. Measurable when it ends.
Purple teaming only works when expectations are aligned in advance. We scope every engagement carefully — defining the engagement type, execution mode, techniques in scope, and how success will be measured before any activity begins.
01 SCOPING & ALIGNMENT
Defining the engagement driver, type, execution mode, techniques in scope, and how detection outcomes will be measured. Nothing starts without a documented, agreed plan.
02 TECHNIQUE EXECUTION
Attacker behavior simulated in a controlled manner, mapped to MITRE ATT&CK, executed against agreed platforms and systems with full metadata capture throughout.
03 DETECTION OUTCOME ASSESSMENT
Every technique assessed against the defined classification model. Telemetry observed, alert behavior recorded, and gaps identified with the evidence to support them.
04 Findings & recommendations
Actionable guidance on detection engineering, telemetry configuration, and SOC process improvements — prioritized by impact and tied directly to what we observed during execution.
WHAT WE FIND
Tooling that isn’t seeing what it should.
The most common finding in purple team engagements isn’t missing technology. It’s technology that’s present but not configured to detect the behavior an attacker would actually use.
“We had the tooling. We just couldn’t see what was happening. CovertSwarm showed us exactly where our detection stopped and why.”
Head of Security Operations
KNOW WHAT YOUR DEFENSES ACTUALLY DETEECT.
Talk to our purple team specialists about the right engagement type for your security maturity and what measurable improvement looks like for your organization.