Adversary Simulation - Norse Shield

What is an Adversary Simulation Exercise ?

Adversary Simulation Exercise is an advanced security testing approach that mimics real-world attackers' tactics, methods, and procedures (TTPs) to assess an organization's preparedness to identify and respond to targeted cyberattacks. It entails constructing a scenario that mimics the behaviour and objectives of a specific governments sponsored or private threat actor or group and then putting those TTPs to the test to see how well an organization's security controls, incident response protocols, and security operations centre (SOC) capabilities work.

Why is Adversary Simulation Exercise Important?

Adversary Simulation Exercises are important for organizations for several reasons

Identifying security gaps:

Adversary Simulation Exercises helps in uncovering vulnerabilities and gaps in an organization's security defences that go undetected in traditional security assessments such as Vulnerability Assessment or Penetration Testing. Then, organizations can identify improvement areas and take measures to mitigate risks.

Testing security controls:

Adversary Simulation Exercises help organizations evaluate the efficacy of their security controls, such as firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems, and other security solutions.

Building a culture of security:

Adversary Simulation Exercises assist organizations in establishing a culture of security by increasing employee awareness of the significance of cybersecurity. By involving employees in the exercises, organizations can help them comprehend the risks and acquire the skills necessary to respond to security incidents.

Improving incident response capabilities:

Adversary Simulation Exercises help organizations test their incident response procedures and security operations centre (SOC) capabilities. By exercising how to respond to a cyberattack, organizations can improve their ability to quickly detect, contain, and respond to security incidents effectively.

Ensuring compliance:

Adversary Simulation Exercises assist organizations in ensuring regulatory compliance and adherence to industry standards. Numerous regulations and standards, including PCI DSS, mandate that organizations conduct routine security testing and risk assessments.

Case Study

In 2019, Capital One, an American bank holding company, experienced a data breach that resulted in the theft of sensitive customer data that affected more than 100 million individuals and cost more than $300 million to the company. The breach was caused by a misconfigured firewall in Capital One's cloud infrastructure, which allowed a hacker to gain access and exfiltrate the company's customer data stored in Amazon Web Services' cloud platform. Capital One could have prevented this data breach by conducting regular adversary simulation exercises, which would have identified the misconfigured firewall and provided insights to improve their security controls.

How may Norse Shield assist?

Norse Shield specializes in offensive security services, including Adversary Simulation. Our team of seasoned cybersecurity experts has the skills and expertise to simulate real-world attacks by government-sponsored or individual cyber attackers and groups and provide a realistic assessment of your organization's security posture against targeted attacks. We use the most up-to-date tools and techniques to identify and exploit security gaps and provide actionable recommendations to improve the security posture of our customers. Following industry best practices, we adhere to international security frameworks and standards such as ATT&CK, D3FEND, NIST, and ISO 27001.