UK-based · penetration testing & red team operations
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Forefront IT Security ServicesReal adversaries do not go through your controls, they go around them. We work through your defences by hand, technique by technique against MITRE ATT&CK, measuring what your SOC actually detects, and AETOS can then keep proving those gaps stay closed long after we leave.
Managing cyber risk rests on three pillars, your people, your processes and your technical controls. A real adversary only needs the weakest one to give way. Red and purple teaming pressure-tests all three together, exactly the way an attacker would.
Risk
People
Process
Technology
People
Awareness, judgement and response under pressure, from the front line to the board, tested with real social engineering and live scenarios.
Process
Detection, escalation and decision-making, do your playbooks and your SOC actually hold up when the alarm is real, not a tabletop?
Technology
The controls and tooling themselves, measured against genuine adversary tradecraft to prove what stops an attack and what waves it through.
Where a penetration test asks "is this system vulnerable?", a red team asks "if a capable adversary targeted this organisation with a clear objective, would we stop them, and would we even notice?". We emulate a determined threat actor pursuing specific goals such as domain compromise, access to sensitive data, or staging for ransomware, exercising your people and process as much as your technology.
Every action is mapped to MITRE ATT&CK, so the outcome is not a vague verdict but a precise picture of which techniques your controls detected, which they missed, and which they blocked outright. Purple teaming runs the same scenarios collaboratively and transparently alongside your defenders: we execute a technique, confirm together whether it generated the expected telemetry and alert, and tune detections in real time, closing gaps in days rather than discovering them in the next breach.
Engagements are run under a strict risk-management framework so even full-chain simulation stays safe and controlled. After the engagement, AETOS turns those one-off exercises into continuous adversarial validation: techniques are re-run safely on a schedule and measured against your live detection coverage, so you can prove your defences are still working, and that the gaps you fixed have stayed fixed.
Objective-led, stealthy emulation of a real threat actor across the full kill chain, initial access, establishing command and control, privilege escalation, lateral movement and action on objectives, tailored to your threat profile.
Collaborative attack-and-defend sessions where each technique is executed openly with your SOC, validated against expected telemetry, and used to build or tune detections live, with before-and-after coverage measured.
Start from a realistic foothold, a compromised endpoint or set of user credentials, to focus entirely on internal detection, containment and response without spending budget on perimeter entry.
Phishing, pretext and credential-harvesting scenarios run with consent and care, testing the human layer and the controls behind it: gateway filtering, MFA, reporting culture and analyst response.
A named control group is briefed throughout and holds the emergency stop. A short daily wash-up deconflicts activity and escalates anything urgent, and a weekly workshop walks your blue team through what was attempted, detected and missed, turning the engagement into live learning, not just a final report.
Every technique attempted is mapped to MITRE ATT&CK and classified as blocked, detected or missed, giving you a defensible, framework-aligned view of exactly where your visibility breaks down.
Safe, repeatable emulation of attacker techniques on a schedule through the AETOS platform, so detection coverage is measured continuously and regressions are caught as your environment changes.
Every engagement follows a structured, phased process, so you know exactly what happens, when, and what you receive at each stage.
We agree the "flags" that represent real harm to your business and profile the adversaries most likely to target you, so the simulation reflects genuine threats rather than a generic checklist.
Targeted OSINT and, where in scope, social engineering or assumed-breach entry to establish a foothold the way a real operator would, under agreed rules of engagement.
Command-and-control is established and privileges escalated through the environment, exercising your detection at each stage while staying within the engagement's safety controls.
Controlled pivoting toward the agreed objectives, testing segmentation, monitoring and response, with every technique recorded and mapped to MITRE ATT&CK.
In a purple engagement, each technique is replayed openly with your defenders to confirm telemetry, build or refine detections, and re-test until the gap is closed, measured, not assumed.
A board-level briefing and technical debrief land the lessons, and AETOS re-runs key techniques on a schedule so detection coverage is proven over time rather than at a single moment.
We agree the "flags" that represent real harm to your business and profile the adversaries most likely to target you, so the simulation reflects genuine threats rather than a generic checklist.
Targeted OSINT and, where in scope, social engineering or assumed-breach entry to establish a foothold the way a real operator would, under agreed rules of engagement.
Command-and-control is established and privileges escalated through the environment, exercising your detection at each stage while staying within the engagement's safety controls.
Controlled pivoting toward the agreed objectives, testing segmentation, monitoring and response, with every technique recorded and mapped to MITRE ATT&CK.
In a purple engagement, each technique is replayed openly with your defenders to confirm telemetry, build or refine detections, and re-test until the gap is closed, measured, not assumed.
A board-level briefing and technical debrief land the lessons, and AETOS re-runs key techniques on a schedule so detection coverage is proven over time rather than at a single moment.
Every engagement is delivered to be acted on, by your board and your engineers alike.
A full attack narrative and chronological timeline of the operation, from initial access to objectives
A MITRE ATT&CK coverage matrix showing every technique attempted and whether it was blocked, detected or missed
Prioritised, specific detection-engineering and response improvements your SOC can implement immediately
An executive briefing on resilience and risk, plus a deep technical debrief for the blue team
For purple teaming, tuned detection rules and measured before-and-after coverage
Optional continuous adversarial validation through AETOS to prove improvements hold over time
A penetration test is breadth-first and technology-focused: find and prove as many vulnerabilities as possible in a defined scope. A red team is goal-first and tests the whole organisation, people, process and technology, by pursuing a specific objective as stealthily as a real adversary, with detection and response as the primary thing under examination.
Have a question that isn't covered here? We're happy to talk it through.
Tell us about your environment, and we'll recommend the right approach and give you a clear quote.
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