SERVICES
Red Teaming
Go beyond penetration testing with scenario-driven, objective-based attacks executed with minimal scope restrictions to determine whether the organization detects real-world threats.
Why Organizations Need Red Teaming
Traditional penetration tests are constrained by predefined scope, defender awareness, and fixed time windows, producing point-in-time results rather than attacker reality. Real adversaries don’t operate that way.
When you partner with OnDefend, red team engagements are built around the attack scenarios you care about most, emulating real world adversaries that operate across systems, people, and processes with minimal artificial constraints. This allows our team to adapt, persist, and pursue objectives until compromise, impact, or detection occurs, showing how an attacker can actually reach critical systems and data.
Types of Red Team Activities
Initial Access & Social Engineering
We gain entry using a combination of technical intrusion techniques and realistic manipulation of human trust.
Adversary Emulation
We replicate the tactics, techniques, and behaviors of real-world threat actors relevant to your risk profile.
Objective-Based Operations
We pursue defined attacker objectives to demonstrate meaningful business and operational impact.
Command, Control & Persistence
We establish and maintain covert access designed to survive monitoring, resets, and credential changes.
Privilege Escalation & Trust Abuse
We elevate access by exploiting weaknesses, misconfigurations, and implicit trust relationships.
Reconnaissance & Lateral Movement
We quietly map the environment and move across identities and systems once inside.
Evasion & Dwell Operations
We deliberately evade controls and operate over time to measure true visibility and detection capability.
Impact Demonstration & Data Exfiltration
We safely demonstrate attacker impact, including controlled data access and removal, without business disruption.
Reveal the Remaining Risk
Point-in-time red team engagements only provide visibility into roughly one third of adversary-driven risk by enabling persistent, adaptive attacker behavior within defined time bounds. As environments, identities, services, and trust relationships evolve beyond the scope of discrete engagements, real attackers continue adapting to these changes, creating new attack opportunities over time that defenders must keep pace with.
The OnDefend Continuous Security Inspector (CSI) program extends adversary emulation beyond discrete exercises to reveal the remaining two thirds of adversary-driven risk. Powered by proprietary technology, threat intelligence, and AI-driven analysis, OnDefend CSI continuously adapts attacker behavior to mirror changing environments – exposing hidden attack paths, zero-day vulnerabilities, and control failures that only appear as systems and adversaries evolve.
Giving You The Competitive Advantage
Let OnDefend give you a decisive advantage over adversaries by combining elite offensive operators, deep cloud expertise, and intelligence-driven security validation.
Our Team
Partners with Yours
Our team partners with yours to gain a deep understanding of your environment and objectives so you receive clear communication, expert guidance, and actionable insight that ensures outcomes align with your security and business goals.
Resources
Explore our comprehensive resource collection to enhance your organization’s security posture and stay ahead of potential threats.
TikTok Partnership
HaystackID and OnDefend are furthering security of the TikTok U.S. platform & app.
Read ArticleRed Teaming FAQs
What is red teaming in cybersecurity?
Red teaming is a security assessment that emulates real adversaries using a combination of technical, physical, and social engineering tactics. The goal is to test how far an attacker can go and how your detection and response capabilities perform, not only to find individual vulnerabilities.
How is red teaming different from penetration testing?
Penetration tests focus on identifying and validating vulnerabilities in specific systems, such as networks or applications. Red team assessment services simulate full campaigns that chain multiple weaknesses across systems, people, and processes to reach defined mission objectives and measure response.
What is red team as-a-service?
Engagements are carefully scoped with your team to avoid unplanned outages. We define safety constraints, maintenance windows where needed, change control requirements, and clear stop conditions. The exercise is designed to simulate realistic attackers while protecting business operations.
Will red team operations disrupt our business?
Yes. We test physical, virtual, hybrid, and cloud connected networks including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and other third-party cloud providers.
How often should we run a red team assessment?
Many organizations conduct a full red team engagement annually or after major changes such as cloud migrations, mergers, or large technology shifts. Those with higher risk profiles often use red team as a service, combining annual full scope exercises with smaller targeted missions throughout the year.
Who should be involved in a red team engagement?
Typical stakeholders include security leadership, SOC and incident response teams, IT and cloud owners, and in some cases, facilities and HR when physical or social engineering tests are in scope. Executive sponsors help set objectives and approve the rules of engagement.
Ready to See Your Real Attack Paths?
Contact us to scope your red team engagement.
