Breach & Attack Simulation
Continuous Security Control Validation
Simulate real-world attack scenarios to validate whether your security controls actually detect and stop threats.
What is Breach & Attack Simulation?
Security controls are only valuable if they work when they're needed. Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) answers the question organisations most need answered but rarely ask: do our EDR, SIEM, WAF, and email security controls actually detect and block the attacks they claim to cover?
Our BAS service combines automated simulation of known attack techniques (mapped to MITRE ATT&CK) with manual adversary emulation to test your detection and response capabilities against a realistic threat profile. We identify control gaps — not from theoretical assessment but from observed failure to detect real attack behaviour.
Unlike annual penetration tests, BAS can be run continuously or quarterly to track your security programme's effectiveness over time, measure improvement after control changes, and validate that your team receives and acts on the alerts your tools generate.
Why it matters
- Studies consistently show that over 50% of endpoint detections fail or produce no alert in real-world attack simulations — despite vendor claims
- SIEM alert fatigue means real attacks are buried in false positives — BAS identifies which real attacks are being missed vs. which are generating actionable alerts
- After a security tool investment, BAS provides objective evidence of whether the investment improved your actual detection posture
- Continuous validation tracks security programme ROI and provides evidence for board-level security reporting
- MITRE ATT&CK alignment lets you report your detection coverage by tactic and technique — a language security leadership and insurers increasingly require
Our methodology
1. Threat Profile & Attack Scenario Selection
We select attack scenarios relevant to your industry threat profile — the specific ransomware groups, APT actors, and attack techniques most likely to target organisations like yours. Scenarios are mapped to MITRE ATT&CK tactics from Initial Access through Impact.
2. Control Baseline Documentation
Documentation of your security control stack: EDR product and configuration, SIEM rules and data sources, email security, WAF, DLP, and backup/recovery. This establishes what should detect what, against which we validate actual performance.
3. Attack Simulation Execution
Execution of approved attack simulations across the kill chain — phishing simulation, credential theft, lateral movement, data collection, and exfiltration — with observation of whether controls detect, alert, and block at each stage.
4. Gap Analysis & Tuning Recommendations
Documentation of every control gap — techniques that executed without detection — and specific recommendations for SIEM rule tuning, EDR policy changes, and missing control deployment.
Frequently asked questions
Will BAS simulations trigger our incident response team?
This is actually one of the key things we're testing — whether your team receives and responds to alerts. We agree notification protocols before the engagement: sometimes clients prefer full stealth (test the whole response chain), sometimes they notify the SOC team in advance to test tool detection only.
What's the difference between BAS and a red team exercise?
BAS focuses on validating whether controls detect known techniques. Red teaming uses novel techniques and operational tradecraft to evade controls. BAS tells you if your defences work against known attacks. Red teaming tells you what a determined, skilled attacker can achieve despite your defences.
Which EDR and SIEM platforms do you test against?
We test against all major platforms: CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, SentinelOne, Carbon Black (EDR); Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel, Elastic SIEM, IBM QRadar (SIEM). We don't require you to change your tool stack.
How often should we run BAS?
Quarterly at minimum for organisations in high-risk sectors. After any significant control change (new EDR, SIEM migration, new detection rules), a focused validation run confirms the change achieved the intended improvement.
Can BAS be used to validate our ransomware defences specifically?
Yes — this is one of the most common BAS use cases. See also our dedicated Ransomware Resiliency service, which combines BAS-style simulation with tabletop exercises and backup/recovery testing into a focused ransomware preparedness programme.
Deliverables
MITRE ATT&CK Coverage Heatmap
Visual coverage map showing which techniques are detected, alerted, or missed across all tactics
Control Gap Report
Every simulated technique with pass/fail/partial detection result and gap analysis
SIEM Tuning Recommendations
Specific rule additions, thresholds, and data source gaps identified during simulation
EDR Policy Recommendations
EDR configuration changes to improve detection of missed techniques
Executive Dashboard
Board-level security control effectiveness score with trend comparison if recurring
Industries served
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