Weeks before anything touches your perimeter, we build the picture from open sources: org structure and staff from public profiles, forgotten dev and staging subdomains, supplier relationships, and how your service desk verifies a caller. All of it is public; none of it is intrusive.
recon — example
op:~$ subfinder -d corp.example -silent | httpx -sc
gitlab-dev.corp.example 200
jenkins-legacy.corp.example 200# stale, still resolving
vpn-uat.corp.example 401op:~$ # staff enumerated, photo badges visible in public posts
Passive by design — your logs stay quiet through the whole of recon.
02
Initial access
Access usually comes through people, not software. Depending on what recon surfaces, that's a tailored pretext to the help desk, a targeted phish, or an MFA-reset call. The routine never changes: borrow a process that genuinely exists so the request feels ordinary.
Example · service-desk pretext
Desk Can I take your date of birth?
Op Fourteenth of March, eighty-eight.
Desk And the last four of your payroll number?
Op I'm on the plant floor, it's in my locker — the release is at seven.
Desk That's fine, I'll push the reset now.
Knowledge-based verification is not verification.
03
Foothold
Inside, we set up quiet command and control: aged, categorised infrastructure, egress over channels you already permit, long sleep and jitter so a beacon reads as background noise. Then we watch what your telemetry captures — and what it lets through.
Telemetry you don't read is telemetry you don't have.
04
Escalation
From one host we map the paths that matter: delegation misconfigurations, stale service-account passwords, credential reuse. Domain admin is rarely an exploit — it's usually a short chain of small, individually fixable oversights.
escalation — example
op:~$ findDelegation.py -target-domain corp.example.local
PRT-SRV-04$ Unconstrained ServerTrustAccount
op:~$ # svc_backup — password unchanged for years — cracked in seconds[+] domain admin via a chain of small misconfigurations
The fix is almost always cheaper than the finding.
05
Objective
We drive to the agreed objective — a payment file, a data set, a control-system action — prove we could reach it, and stop. Then we replay the whole chain with your defenders so detection improves exactly where it failed.
What you get
DeliverableTimed attack narrative
Detection gapsMapped to each phase
Root causesRanked, with fixes
Follow-upPurple-team replay
The deliverable is a stronger blue team, not a trophy.
Recon
Access
Foothold
Escalation
Objective
01
Pretext
We build lures from processes that already exist in your business — a customs hold, a payroll correction, a missed voicemail — sent from domains aged and warmed so they clear your gateway. Generic lures test filters; specific lures test people.
Example lure · payroll pretext
payroll-notice@corp-hr.example
Correction to your March payment — action needed by Friday
A rounding error affected 38 payments this month, including yours. Confirm your details to release the correction.
Review my payment
A warmed, aligned domain beats a clever subject line.
02
Delivery
We send in controlled waves and measure what your controls actually do — what reaches the inbox, what the external-sender banner changes, what gets quarantined. Delivery is rarely where a campaign is stopped.
Gateway · representative
Sent4,120
Delivered to inbox4,118
Quarantined2
Marked externalBanner present, ignored
The external-sender banner alone rarely changes behaviour.
03
Response
Every stage narrows, and every stage is a control you can move — except reporting, which is the only one that fights back. This is the shape a campaign usually takes.
Delivered4,118
Opened1,864
Clicked703
Credentials289
MFA approved41
Reported22
Representative funnel — share of delivered mail reaching each stage.04
What it means
The number that matters is the gap between the people who acted and the people who told someone. You close it by making reporting a single button — and thanking the people who use it.
Typical time to first click
4m 12s
Typical time to first report
31m 00s
We optimise for the report, not the scare.
Pretext
Delivery
Response
Findings
01
Survey
We watch a site the way an intruder would: shift changes, patrol cycles, propped fire doors, badge artwork readable from the car park. Most of what defeats a building is learned from outside it, with patience rather than tools.
Observation log · example
Night shift arrives, single file through turnstile
Shelter door wedged open with a fire extinguisher
Guard patrol, exterior only, fixed cycle
Most entries are planned in a car park, not a lab.
02
Perimeter
The way in is rarely the front door. A wedged fire exit, a smoking-shelter door, a group drifting back from break — we tailgate on a routine that already exists and carry ourselves like we belong.
Entry · example
Through shelter door with a returning group
Passed staff in corridor, nodded, no challenge
Reached loading bay, camera unmonitored
A perfect turnstile is not the only way in.
03
Credential
Legacy proximity badges clone in seconds, often straight through a jacket. A cloned low-frequency badge tends to open every internal reader in the building — the technology, not the person, is the weakness.
Badge · typical
Technology125 kHz prox, no crypto
CaptureSeconds, through clothing
Readers openedEvery internal reader tried
FixMigrate to SEOS / DESFire EV3
A 2006 badge is a copied badge.
04
Objective
We reach the agreed objective — usually a comms room or server cabinet — with a lock bypass or an under-door tool, then place a rogue device on an unfiltered port to prove persistence. Network access control ends where the cable begins.
Comms room · example
Under-door tool, lever handle released
Unfiltered port, no 802.1X, default VLAN
Implant online, reverse tunnel over 4G
Access control ends where the cable begins.
05
Egress
We leave the way staff leave, having signed nothing, and let a monitored implant dial home until you locate it — or until we tell you where it is. Every control on site can be working and still not be in our way.
What you get
DeliverableAnnotated route map
Per controlWhat worked, what didn't
EvidencePhotos, timeline, implant log
Follow-upGuard-force debrief
We test the response, not just the lock.
Survey
Perimeter
Credential
Objective
Egress
01
Scope
We agree exactly what is in and out — perimeter, applications, cloud tenants, the internal estate from a standard laptop build — and we don't ask to be allow-listed, because attackers aren't.
In scope · example
External hostsPerimeter, enumerated
ApplicationsWeb & API, authed + unauthed
Cloud tenantsProduction & staging
Internal estateFrom a standard build
Authorisation in writing before a packet moves.
02
External
On the perimeter the routine is enumerate, then verify: exposed services, authentication logic, and access-control flaws like IDOR that hand back records by changing a number. Anything critical reaches you the same day, not in the final report.
finding — example (IDOR)
op:~$ curl -s https://portal.corp.example/api/v2/record/100241
{"id":"100241","record":"█████","dob":"████-██-██"}
op:~$ # sequential IDs respond 200 with no auth check[!] full record set reachable unauthenticated
You hear about criticals the day we find them.
03
Cloud
In cloud we chase the chains that turn a small bug into a large one: SSRF into the metadata service, over-broad roles, backups without a customer-managed key. A single misconfiguration is rarely the whole story.
finding — example (SSRF)
render?url=http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/iam/
200 role: svc-render-prod
[~] s3:GetObject on corp-backups-prod
[!] IMDSv1 reachable on most instances
One flag, http_tokens=required, often removes the whole chain.
04
Internal
Inside, the wins are reliably unglamorous: unsigned SMB, relay paths, stale privileged accounts, credential reuse. Novel exploits make headlines; these make incidents.
Representative findings by severity and status
Sev
Typical finding
Handling
CRIT
Unauthenticated IDOR exposing bulk records
Same-day report
CRIT
SSRF to cloud metadata, role access to backups
Fixed, retested
CRIT
NTLM relay, SMB signing disabled
Fixed, retested
HIGH
Unpatched edge appliance, n-day RCE
Fixed, retested
HIGH
Privileged password unchanged for years
Fixed, retested
MED
Headers, session fixation, verbose errors
Scheduled
05
Retest
A finding closes when we can't reproduce it, not when a ticket changes colour. We retest every critical and high until it's gone — and that retest is in the original price.
Retest
Criticals & highsRetested to closure
EvidenceReproduction attempt on record
ReportUpdated with final status
Cost of retest£0 — included
A ticket closing is not a finding closing.
Scope
External
Cloud
Internal
Retest
Capabilities
Pick the one that answers the question you actually have.
01
Red team operations
Objective-based, no prior notice, measured on dwell time rather than vulnerability counts. Answers: would we notice, and how long would it take?
Full kill chain
Detection engineering feedback
Purple team replay
02
Penetration testing
External, internal, web, API, cloud and build reviews. Manual testing with tooling underneath it, not the other way round. Retest included.
CREST-aligned methodology
Same-day criticals
Developer-readable write-ups
03
Phishing & social engineering
Pretexts built from your real processes, run in waves, scored on reporting rate as well as click rate. Vishing and smishing where scope allows.
Email, voice, SMS
MFA fatigue testing
Reporting-rate baselining
04
Physical security assessment
Covert entry, tailgating, badge cloning, lock bypass and rogue device placement, with a signed authorisation letter in the operator's pocket the whole time.
Covert & overt entry
Access control review
Guard force response testing
05
Security engineering & custom tooling
The other half of the job. Hardening, identity, logging that someone reads, and purpose-built tooling when nothing off the shelf fits your estate.
Detection & logging uplift
Identity and access hardening
Bespoke tooling & automation
Rules of engagement
Six commitments, in writing, before anything runs.
Scope is written down
Signed authorisation, named systems, agreed hours. If it is not on the paper, we do not touch it.
The deconfliction line stays open
One named contact, one number, the whole engagement. One call stops everything inside a minute.
Your data is handled like your data
Encrypted at rest, minimum necessary collection, destroyed on a schedule you set and we evidence.
Criticals go out the same day
You do not wait for the report to learn you are exposed. The report explains what you already fixed.
Retest is included
A finding closes when we cannot reproduce it, not when a ticket changes colour. No second invoice.
We write down what failed
Every attempt that did not work is in the report. That is where your controls are actually described.
Start an engagement
Find out from us.
A scoping call takes half an hour and costs nothing. Bring the thing that keeps you up —
we will tell you honestly whether a test is the right answer for it.