Red Team Security Services

More than typical penetration testing, Kroll’s Red Team security services utilize our frontline threat intelligence and the mindset of malicious threat actors to push a client’s data security controls to their limits.

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Watch as Jeff and Ben explain the benefits and what might qualify your organization for a red team exercise.

While we cannot predict when a client will be targeted by a cyberattack, an attack simulation – also known as a "red team" exercise – will give them a fuller understanding of their organization’s level of preparedness.

A red team exercise goes further than typical penetration testing, providing a more in-depth assessment of an organization’s detection and response capabilities against a simulated threat actor with defined objectives (e.g., data exfiltration). An organization with a mature vulnerability management program that includes regular pen testing may get additional benefits from our red team security services.

Kroll designs red team operations to exceed the limits of typical security testing, rigorously challenging the effectiveness of an organization’s data security controls, personnel and processes when detecting and responding to targeted cyberattacks. During testing, our experts evaluate an organization’s reaction to the simulated attack, helping them identify security risks and expose any hidden vulnerabilities. This allows our clients to better address and remediate gaps in their data security so they can allocate more resources toward future growth and investments.

Get the Full Picture with Red Team Testing

Evaluate Your Response

Identify Security Risks

Uncover Vulnerabilities

Address Identified Exposures

Enhance Blue Team Effectiveness

Evaluate Your Response

Prioritize Future Investments

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Red Team Security Services Key Features

Our red teaming methodology has been meticulously crafted to offer flexibility, clarity, and support, allowing our clients to act with confidence.

Offensive Security Experts – Our team of seasoned and accredited professionals use their expertise in data security to test every aspect of an organization's cybersecurity controls and incident response protocols against the most stringent technical, legal and regulatory standards
Intelligence-Driven Testing – Our red team operations incorporate evasion, deception, and stealth techniques to emulate the methods used by the most sophisticated threat actors to simulate a realistic cyberattack and produce actionable security outcomes.
Blended Attack Methods – We use a wide variety of attack techniques to test the strength of a client’s defenses, including phishing, social engineering, exploitation of vulnerable services, proprietary adversarial tools and techniques and physical access methods.
In-Depth Reporting – Our experts provide key stakeholders with a comprehensive post-engagement report, offering a full overview of their assessment and practical insights to support remediation of any identified risks.

Customizable Terms of Engagement – Our approach is tailored to meet a client’s needs and their level of security maturity. We test the effectiveness of security controls by simulating both internal and external threat actors across various attack domains, including OSINT (open-source intelligence) gathering, network reconnaissance, custom social engineering and phishing campaigns.
Comprehensive, Actionable Findings – Kroll’s adversarial simulation follows the MITRE Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge (ATT&CK) frameworks. Our goal is to provide a quantifiable effectiveness rating across both attack and defense surfaces through entire attack chain to better inform strategic decision-making.
Ongoing Collaborative Support – We work with our clients to devise a testing strategy that aligns with natural business cycles. The program may include red team, social engineering, penetration testing and purple team services. Our team can also assist with strategic and tactical remediation so the client can prevent and respond to real-world attacks and minimize their long-term risk.

Red Team Objectives – Examples

Accessing segmented environments housing sensitive data
Seizing control of an IoT device or specialized equipment
Compromising senior staff members’ account credentials
Fraudulently obtaining privileges to deploy ransomware across the environment
Gaining access to OT/ICS zone
Obtaining access to a sensitive physical location, like a server room
Phishing or social engineering campaigns directed at an individual user or group
Bypassing established security controls (e.g., endpoint detection and response (EDR), data loss prevention (DLP), email security or anti-bot controls).

Example Red Team Objectives

Actionable Red Team Reporting

Kroll’s red teaming approach gives our clients a clear, real-world perspective of their security posture to provide actionable strategies with cognizable benefits. Here is what an organization can expect to read in their read team report:

Executive Summary

A high-level overview tailored for executive and management teams highlighting the outcome of the assessment, exposed vulnerabilities, and strategic recommendations to resolve any identified problems or systemic concerns.

Play-by-Play of the Attack Simulation

A clear description of the steps taken to compromise the organization along with observations about their system’s strength.

Technical Feedback

In-depth technical information to help teams understand, replicate and address weaknesses described in the findings.

Expert Threat Assessment

A thorough evaluation of all security risks detected, including their degree of severity and potential impact.

Actionable Intelligence

Tactical and strategic observations and recommendations, including expert advice on how to address identified risks.

Mapping to Security Frameworks

Accurate identification and alignment with NIST, CIS, HITRUST, and MITRE ATT&CK frameworks.

Red Team Testing Methodology

Kroll’s red team operations experts use a systemic approach to test the capacity of a client organization’s threat detection and response capabilities. The stages of a typical red team engagement might include:

Reconnaissance– The success of any red team test is contingent on the quality of information our team has upfront. Kroll’s security experts use a wide variety of OSINT tools, techniques, and sources to gather intel about the client’s networks, employees and in-use security systems that could be used to compromise the target.
Staging– After identifying vulnerable access points, our team devises a plan of attack. Then they enter “staging” phase, which includes setting up and concealing resources and groundwork needed to launch an attack (e.g., arranging servers to perform "command and control"(C2) operations and social engineering activities).

Initial Access– During the initial access phase of a red team operation, Kroll’s ethical hackers establish a foothold in the target environment. To achieve their objective, our hackers may try to exploit any discovered gaps or vulnerabilities in the system, brute-force weak employee passwords and launch phishing attacks or drop malicious payloads using fake emails.
Internal Compromise– After getting a foothold in the target network, the red team shifts its focus to executing the operation's objectives, which may include lateral movement across the network, elevating privileges, and data extraction.
Reporting and Analysis– At the conclusion of a red team operation, our experts draft a comprehensive report to convey the results of the exercise to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. The report summary typically includes an overview of the effectiveness of the current security program, methods and attack vectors used in the simulation, and recommendations for mitigating and remediating future risks.

Red Team Testing Fueled by Frontline Intelligence

As one of the world’s largest incident response providers, Kroll handles more than 3,000 cyber incidents every year in more than 140 countries and nearly every industry and sector. With our unrivaled expertise, we collect useful frontline threat intelligence and incorporate the latest tactics and processes into red team operations.

We’ve developed our red team services to help companies stay ahead of new and emerging threats by providing a complete assessment of their threat detection and response capabilities through a simulated cyberattack.

Our Red Team Security Qualifications

In addition to our unmatched threat intelligence, Kroll’s team of experts have the experience and skills to identify the latest threats and leverage them to put our clients’ security controls through the ringer. On top of their cyber street cred, the experts on our team members also carry several key certifications and credentials:

Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP)
CREST Registered Penetration Tester
CREST Certified Infrastructure Tester
Azure Security Specialist Cert
AWS Security Specialist Cert
GIAC Penetration Tester (GPEN)
GIAC Web Application Penetration Tester (GWAPT)
GIAC Exploit Researcher and Advanced Penetration Tester (GXPN)
GIAC Cloud Penetration Tester (GCPN)
EC-Council Licensed Penetration Tester (LPT) Master
Certified Red Team Operations Professional (CRTOP)

Red Teaming Part and the Cyber Risk Retainer

Kroll’s red team security services can be packaged as part of our client-friendly Cyber Risk Retainer, along with our slate of other valuable cybersecurity solutions, including tabletop exercises, risk assessments, cloud security services and more. With the Cyber Risk Retainer, our also clients receive unique discounts as well as access to Kroll’s elite digital forensics and response team, which offers services like crisis communications and litigation support to help when their organization is most in need.

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Kroll is ready to help, 24x7. Use the links on this page to explore our services further or speak to a Kroll expert today via our 24x7 cyber hotlines or our contact page.

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Frequently Asked Questions

A “red team” is a term originally derived from military exercises for a group playing the part of the adversary. This requires that the red team members are highly skilled in offensive tactics that real world adversaries are likely to employ. Within a cybersecurity exercise, these adversarial tactics are used to penetrate your systems in order to provide a realistic assessment of the effectiveness of your defenses against real-world attacks.

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