Adversary Emulation 101: Mimicking a real-world cyber attack

Learn how to perform adversary emulation exercises end-to-end

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Adversary Emulation 101

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During an adversary emulation exercise we mimic a real world cyber attack with a specific objective, such as stealing customer data, launching a ransomware attack etc. This course follows the Red Team Operations Attack Lifecycle to conduct this exercise. We go through each phase in a step-by-step manner and build our attack path as we move ahead. We employee a variety of techniques, such as

  • Active and passive information gathering
  • Gaining foothold into the network
  • Host Discovery
  • Brute-forcing
  • Phishing
  • Privilege Escalation (Linux and Windows)
  • Automated Active Directory domain enumeration
  • Persistence via command and control center
  • Active Directory attacks

to achieve our objective. Upon completion of the exercise, we will prepare and submit a report to the organization’s management.

It also covers installation and usage of tools such as, PoshC2, Mentalist, BloodHound, Mimikatz, Metasploit, PowerUp, icacls, PowerShell etc.

This is a beginner friendly course. If you have just started your career in offensive cybersecurity or are preparing for penetration testing exams then this course is for you. If you are already a penetration tester or a red teamer, with a few years of experience under your belt, then you would already know most of the above mentioned techniques. However, if you are interested in witnessing a live adversary emulation exercise, please feel free to follow along. Enroll in this course

What you’ll learn

  • Plan and manage adversary emulation exercise
  • Difference between red teaming and adversary emulation
  • Red team operations attack lifecycle
  • Conducting adversary emulation exercise on a live organization
  • Gathering information about an organization using Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) techniques
  • Weaponizing exploits to gain foothold into the network
  • Password brute-forcing using custom generated lists
  • Phishing an employee
  • Escalating Privileges on Linux and Windows systems
  • Active Directory enumeration using BloodHound
  • Exploiting Active Directory network
  • Establishing persistence via PoshC2 (command and control center software)
  • Creating an engagement report

Requirements

  • Basic knowledge of Kali Linux
  • Basic knowledge of PowerShell
  • Basic understanding of penetration testing and red teaming
  • Red Teamer mindset

Who this course is for

  • Students curious about conducting a real-world security engagement
  • Beginners in Red Teaming
  • Students preparing for penetration testing certifications
  • Cybersecurity Professionals

About this course

In this course, we look at an organization’s security from a real-world adversary perspective. We are hired by a FinTech startup to conduct an adversary emulation exercise and steal their customer data (before an actual adversary). This exercise assumes zero knowledge about the target network.

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Course image source: Freepik.com

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