Red Team Readiness Assessment

Hiring a red team before your SOC is ready is an expensive way to learn what you probably already suspect: your network has gaps. Launch a full red team operation too early and you’ll get a massive report of attack paths your telemetry never caught. Your defenders will feel demoralized. And you’ll spend far more fixing it afterward.

The Red Team Readiness Assessment is the diagnostic layer you run before the live-fire exercise. We evaluate your people, processes, identity controls, and detection capabilities to answer one question: Is your SOC actually ready to detect and learn from a red team operation? If it’s not, we give you a roadmap to get there.

Which Assessment Do You Need?

Security testing is not one-size-fits-all. Different maturity levels need different approaches. Many organizations confuse these:

Type	Purpose	How It Works	Who It’s For
Vulnerability Assessment	Find known security flaws.	Automated scanning, broad and systematic.	Compliance teams, IT operations.
Penetration Test	Confirm flaws are exploitable.	Manual testing in a defined scope.	Engineering, application security, compliance.
Red Team Readiness	Check if your SOC is ready.	Collaborative review, no actual attacks.	Security leadership, SOC managers.
Red Team Operation	Full simulated adversary attack.	Stealthy, multi-phase, real testing.	Mature SOCs ready for the challenge.

The Four Pillars We Evaluate

Successful red team engagements depend on four foundational areas. We assess each one:

1. Scope & Rules of Engagement Can your organization actually define what’s in-bounds and what’s off-limits? We check whether you have clear, legal boundaries for testing—what infrastructure is fair game, which third-party vendors are protected, and what hours are restricted.

2. Asset & Identity Inventory A red team exploits what you don’t know you have. We review your visibility into critical Tier 0 assets, service accounts, hidden Active Directory domains, and cloud identity sprawl in AWS/GCP.

3. Telemetry & Visibility If an attacker runs a legitimate-looking Windows binary (living-off-the-land tactics), does your SIEM catch it? We check endpoint logging (Sysmon, PowerShell transcription) and EDR coverage on your critical servers.

4. Incident Response Maturity When an alert fires, is there actually a process? Or will your team panic? We review escalation procedures, triage workflows, and who handles legal/communications so a simulated incident doesn’t trigger a real crisis response.

How We Validate—Safely

We don’t need to run real attacks to check your defenses. Instead, we use a purple-team approach: controlled, non-destructive evaluation against the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

• Endpoint Logging Check — We verify that critical logging is enabled (Event ID 4688 for command-line auditing, Sysmon, etc.) so lateral movement would be caught, without actually running the attack.

• Identity Analysis — Rather than executing a real Kerberoasting attack, we review Active Directory for weak configurations and overly long ticket lifetimes that would enable that attack.

• Tabletop Attack Chains — We walk your SOC through a simulated attack scenario (phishing gets through, attacker runs PowerShell) and watch how they’d investigate it using your actual SIEM dashboards.

• Phishing & Email Review — We evaluate your email gateway controls (DMARC, SPF, DKIM) and review past security awareness metrics without running a credential-harvesting campaign that could break employee trust.

What You Get

This isn’t a CVE list. It’s a strategic blueprint for getting ready.

• Readiness Scorecard — A clear breakdown of how you’re doing across people, processes, and technology.

• Detection Coverage Heat Map — A MITRE ATT&CK map showing exactly where your telemetry has blind spots—where attacks could happen without being noticed.

• Tabletop Scenario Library — Real attack scenarios your team can use to practice year-round.

• Executive Brief — Plain-English explanation of the risks and what budget you’ll need to fix the biggest gaps.

Where Do You Stand? The Maturity Model

We score you on a 5-level scale. This tells you whether you’re ready for a red team:

Level	Status	What This Looks Like	Red Team Ready?
1	Ad-Hoc	No consistent logging; no dedicated security staff.	❌ No
2	Developing	Some EDR running; no central SIEM; IR is reactive.	❌ No
3	Defined	Central SIEM exists; basic alerts tuned; IR playbooks written.	⚠️ Maybe (purple team only)
4	Managed	Active threat hunting; behavioral alerts; full SOC in place.	✅ Yes
5	Optimized	Automated response; continuous red team exercises; metrics tracking.	✅ Absolutely

The 60-Day Roadmap (If You’re Not Ready Yet)

If you score below Level 4, here’s the path to get there:

Days 1–15: Logging & Telemetry Standardize logging across critical infrastructure. Enable PowerShell Script Block Logging. Tune EDR policies. Make sure quality alerts actually reach your SIEM.

Days 16–30: Identity & Access Fix Active Directory weak spots. Rotate old service account passwords. Turn on MFA for external gateways. Map out who has Tier 0 access and why.

Days 31–45: Incident Response Document your actual IR playbook. Define who escalates to whom. Write down the legal and communication procedures for when something does happen.

Days 46–60: Purple Team Exercise Run a guided tabletop with your SOC. Test specific MITRE ATT&CK techniques. Confirm that your new logging actually catches them.

After this, you’re ready. Your red team investment will pay real dividends.