Contents
- 1 🔬 Advanced Cybersecurity Home Lab Setup Guide
- 2 🎯 Objectives of an Advanced Lab
- 3 🧱 Suggested Topology Overview
- 4 🛠 Tooling Stack
- 5 ☁️ Cloud Security Lab Integration
- 6 🔐 Active Directory Setup (Optional but Recommended)
- 7 🔄 Logging Pipeline (Example)
- 8 🎯 Advanced Use Cases
- 9 🧠 What to Practise
- 10 🧾 Documentation and Playbooks
- 11 ✅ Summary
🔬 Advanced Cybersecurity Home Lab Setup Guide
You’ve built a basic lab. You’ve mastered detection engineering and automation. Now it’s time to create a high-fidelity cyber range—one that mirrors enterprise networks, cloud environments, and attacker behaviours at scale.
🧠 “This isn’t just a lab—it’s a battlefield for defenders and attackers.”
🎯 Objectives of an Advanced Lab
- Emulate full enterprise infrastructure (AD, DNS, File Share, Email)
- Simulate APT-style attack chains with custom payloads and C2s
- Deploy log aggregation, correlation, and detection pipelines
- Orchestrate cloud/on-prem hybrid environments
- Automate detection and response with SOAR and custom scripts
- Perform red vs blue vs purple team exercises
🧱 Suggested Topology Overview
[ Physical Server / Proxmox / VMware ESXi ]
├── Domain Controller (Windows Server 2022)
├── Client Workstations (Win 10/11)
├── Kali Linux / Commando VM (Red Team)
├── Wazuh + ELK Stack or Splunk Enterprise (SIEM)
├── TheHive + Cortex or Shuffle (SOAR)
├── MISP / OpenCTI (Threat Intelligence Platform)
├── File Server, Email Server (SMTP), DNS, Web Server
├── pfSense / OPNsense (Firewall + IDS)
├── Cloud VMs (Azure + AWS accounts)
🛠 Tooling Stack
🟦 Blue Team
- SIEM: Wazuh, ELK, or Splunk Enterprise Trial
- EDR: Velociraptor, Sysmon, OSQuery
- Network: Zeek, Suricata, pfSense
- Threat Intel: MISP, OpenCTI
- Forensics: Volatility, Autopsy, KAPE
- SOAR: Shuffle, TheHive + Cortex
🔴 Red Team
- C2 Frameworks: Cobalt Strike (licensed), Sliver, Mythic, Empire
- Payload Development: Donut, Nim, Shellter, Veil
- Phishing Framework: Gophish
- Evasion: Obfuscation tools, LOLBins
- OSINT Tools: Recon-ng, Maltego
🟣 Purple Team
- Adversary Simulation: Caldera, Atomic Red Team, Prelude Operator
- ATT&CK Coverage: ATT&CK Navigator, Detection-as-Code
- Detection Validation: Invoke-Atomic, Sigma rules
- Log Replay: Mordor Dataset, HELK integrations
☁️ Cloud Security Lab Integration
| Platform | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Azure | Test Defender for Cloud, Sentinel, risky sign-ins |
| AWS | Use GuardDuty, CloudTrail, S3 attack simulations |
| Hybrid Setup | Pull logs from cloud → local SIEM for hybrid SOC |
| IAM Testing | Simulate privilege escalation or access key misuse |
💡 Simulate compromised IAM users and monitor detection paths
🔐 Active Directory Setup (Optional but Recommended)
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| Windows Server DC | Configure AD, DNS, DHCP, GPOs |
| Client Workstations | Join to domain for lateral movement testing |
| File Shares / Print Servers | Mimic SMB attack paths |
| LDAP and Kerberos Logging | Monitor authentication abuse (e.g. Pass-the-Hash) |
🔄 Logging Pipeline (Example)
graph TD
A[Client Logs (Winlogbeat, Sysmon)] --> B[Wazuh Agent]
B --> C[Logstash/Fluentd]
C --> D[Elasticsearch/Splunk]
D --> E[Dashboards + Detections]
D --> F[SOAR Platform (TheHive / Shuffle)]
🎯 Include parsing, enrichment, threat intel tagging, and anomaly scoring.
🎯 Advanced Use Cases
| Scenario | MITRE Techniques |
|---|---|
| Golden Ticket Attack | T1558.001 |
| Command and Control (HTTPS/TLS) | T1071.001 |
| Kerberoasting | T1558.003 |
| DNS Tunneling | T1071.004 |
| Exfil via Cloud Services | T1567.002 |
| WMI Lateral Movement | T1047 |
| O365 MFA Bypass Simulation | T1078.004 |
🧠 What to Practise
- Create custom detection rules (Sigma, KQL, SPL)
- Simulate alert fatigue and tune SOAR auto-triage
- Run red team emulations with full kill chain coverage
- Build dashboards tracking TTP coverage per ATT&CK tactic
- Implement deception tech like Canarytokens or honey services
- Generate incident timelines with real log data for PIRs
🧾 Documentation and Playbooks
Maintain:
- 📘 A runbook per scenario (e.g. RDP brute force, phishing email)
- 📋 A detection sheet with rule logic, source, logs required
- 🧠 A purple team tracker mapping TTPs to detection response
- 🧪 A validation notebook showing success/failure per technique
✅ Summary
This advanced lab lets you create a cyber range in your own home, capable of supporting deep dives into detection, adversary simulation, cloud abuse, and automated defence. It’s your full-stack proving ground.
🧩 “Don’t just learn security—build it, break it, test it, and defend it.”