Red team assessment
Red Team Assessment
Find out what your defence actually does under attack
A penetration test answers what can be exploited. A red team assessment answers a harder question: when a capable attacker moves through your organisation for weeks, does anyone notice, and what happens when they do.
MITRE ATT&CK
Goal-based simulation
Rules of engagement
DORA Article 26
We run goal-based adversary simulations against agreed objectives, not checklists. The engagement is scoped around what would genuinely hurt your business: access to the core banking system, to the payment flow, to production data, to the domain (full administrative control of the network). Everything else is a route, not a target.
Two different questions
What is the difference between a red team assessment and a penetration test?
Both are offensive testing, but they answer different questions and produce different evidence.
Penetration test
A penetration test asks what is exploitable in a defined scope. Your team usually knows it is happening, and the output is a list of findings by severity.
Red team assessment
A red team assessment asks whether an attacker can reach a business-critical objective without being stopped. The scope is the objective and the route is open. Only a small control group knows the test is running, and the output is the attack path plus an assessment of how detection and response performed.
If you have never run offensive testing, start with a penetration test. A red team assessment is worth its cost once you already have a security team, monitoring and an incident process to put under pressure. Testing detection you do not yet have tells you nothing you did not already know.
How the engagement runs
What does a red team engagement include?
01
Reconnaissance and initial access
Externally exposed services, supply chain, credential exposure, and social engineering where it is in scope and legally agreed in writing.
02
Establishing a foothold and moving laterally
Privilege escalation, credential harvesting, and movement toward the agreed objective. Every technique we use, from initial access through to the objective, is mapped to MITRE ATT&CK, so your team can replay the full path afterwards.
03
Reaching the objective
We demonstrate impact rather than describe it: the access obtained, the data reachable, the transaction that could have been made.
04
Attack path debrief
We walk the entire attack path with your defenders, step by step, and identify where detection existed, where it fired without being actioned, and where it was missing entirely. This session is usually where most of the value lands.
ATTACK PATH
A red team assessment follows the route a real attacker would take. Each step below is a point where detection either fires, fires without being actioned, or is missing entirely.
External perimeter
Initial access
Active Directory
Web applications & API
Credential harvesting
Lateral movement
Core banking system
Social engineering
Cloud environment
Objective reached
What lands on your desk
What do you get at the end?
01
— An attack narrative: what we did, in order, with timestamps and the evidence for each step.
02
— A detection and response assessment: which actions were logged, which were alerted, which were escalated, and how long each took.
03
— Prioritised remediation, split into fixes your engineers can make now and changes that need architectural work.
04
— A retest of the agreed findings, so you can show the gaps are closed rather than reported.
How we work
Every engagement starts with written rules of engagement: objectives, systems in and out of scope, permitted techniques, emergency contacts, and a stop condition. Testing is conducted by named specialists, and accountability sits with us as a company, not with a tool. We are vendor-neutral, and we do not resell the products we recommend you fix.
Who this is for
Banks and non-bank financial institutions, fintech and payment providers, critical infrastructure operators, and organisations that already run a SOC and need to know whether it works. If your institution has been designated for threat-led penetration testing under DORA, the regulated form of this testing is TLPT under Article 26.
What clients ask before they sign
Common questions
How long does a red team assessment take?
Typically several weeks rather than days, because the point is sustained pressure over time rather than a burst of scanning. Exact duration depends on the objective, the size of the estate and whether social engineering is in scope. We size it after a scoping call and confirm it in writing before work starts.
Will our team know the test is happening?
Usually only a small control group knows, so that detection and response are tested honestly. The control group can stop the exercise at any point.
Is this safe to run against production?
Yes, with rules of engagement that define exactly what is off limits and a stop condition agreed in advance. We do not run destructive actions, and we do not exfiltrate real customer data: proof of access is demonstrated without removing it.
Do you provide evidence for auditors and regulators?
Yes. The report is structured so it can be handed to an auditor or supervisor, with scope, methodology, findings, remediation and retest results in one document.
Our sertificates
Team portfolio
Where to start?
Active Audit Agency provides extensive cybersecurity services for businesses, ensuring robust protection and compliance for organizations of various sizes.
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