Purple teaming in plain English
In IT security, colors stand for roles. The red team plays the attackers. The blue team defends – for example, the IT department or a service provider that monitors the systems. Mix red and blue, and you get purple. So purple teaming means that both sides work together instead of against each other.
A comparison from sports makes the difference clear. In a match, the defense only finds out after the final whistle where its gaps were. In training, by contrast, the striker runs the same play several times. The coach stops play, and the defense repositions – until it holds. A covert red team exercise is like a match under competition conditions; purple teaming is like targeted training.
Purple teaming is a variant of, or complement to, red teaming. You can read more about both formats on our Red Teaming & APT Simulation page.
How purple teaming works
A typical exercise follows these steps:
- Select scenarios: Both teams jointly decide which attacks are realistic for the organization. This is often based on MITRE ATT&CK – a freely accessible knowledge base that systematically describes how real attackers operate.
- Execute a technique: The red team carries out an attack technique in a controlled manner, for example signing in with stolen credentials or extracting passwords from memory.
- Check detection: At the same time, the blue team checks its tools – for example an EDR system, which monitors endpoints, or a SIEM, which analyzes logs centrally. Was the activity recorded? Was there an alert? Would anyone have responded?
- Improve: If detection is missing, the blue team adjusts rules or settings right away or closes gaps in logging.
- Repeat: The red team executes the technique again until detection works reliably.
- Document: The end result is an overview of which techniques are detected and where action is still needed.
The key difference from red teaming: in a red team exercise, the blue team knows nothing about the exercise, so its real response becomes visible. In purple teaming, everything is out in the open, because the goal is to learn as much as possible. The two formats complement each other well, for example when the undetected steps of a red team exercise are replayed together afterward.
A practical example
A fictional scenario: A regional energy supplier has its IT monitored by an external SOC – a team that continuously analyzes security alerts. In a purple teaming workshop, the red team plays through typical steps of a ransomware attack one after another.
The result is mixed. The SOC immediately detects the sign-in with stolen credentials. Creating a new administrator account, however, doesn’t trigger an alert, because the logs of an important server never reach the SIEM. The team fixes the gap during the workshop, the technique is repeated – and this time, the system raises an alert.
Why does this matter for businesses?
Detection systems are only as good as their rules and the data they receive. Many solutions detect typical attacks out of the box but need to be adapted to your own environment. Whether that has worked often becomes clear only in a real incident. Purple teaming gives you that answer before a real attack does.
At the same time, the blue team learns how attackers think and what traces they leave behind. The results are measurable: you see in black and white which attack techniques are detected. This also helps with regulatory requirements – the NIS2 Directive, for example, requires organizations to assess the effectiveness of their security measures.
What to look out for
- Lay the groundwork: Purple teaming pays off when detection tools are in place and an internal team or service provider handles alerts.
- Choose realistic scenarios: Focus on attack techniques that are relevant to your industry and your systems.
- Involve the right people: Your security analysts and administrators – and your SOC provider, if you have one – need time for the exercise.
- Encourage openness about mistakes: It’s about learning, not assigning blame.
- Set ground rules: Agreed techniques and clear boundaries protect ongoing operations.
- Repeat regularly: Attackers keep evolving their methods – your detection should keep pace.
How Rootsektor can help
Rootsektor offers purple teaming as a variant of, or complement to, red teaming. Our team executes the agreed attack techniques step by step, while your blue team or SOC provider checks detection and alerting in parallel and adjusts the rules right away. This is particularly effective after a covert red team exercise, to close the detection gaps it uncovered in a targeted way. Learn more on our Red Teaming & APT Simulation page.