Contents
🟣 What Is Purple Teaming?
Purple Teaming is a collaborative approach to cybersecurity that bridges the gap between offensive (Red Team) and defensive (Blue Team) operations. Rather than working in isolation, both teams share insights, tools, and strategies to improve an organisation’s overall security posture.
The goal of Purple Teaming isn’t competition—it’s continuous improvement through structured collaboration.
🤝 Red + Blue = Purple
In traditional setups, Red Teams test defences without telling the Blue Team how they attacked. Purple Teams change that dynamic by making the exercise cooperative.
- 🔴 Red Team: Simulates realistic attack scenarios
- 🔵 Blue Team: Monitors, detects, and responds
- 🟣 Purple Team: Facilitates knowledge sharing, improves detection, and tunes defences based on Red Team insights
🎯 Objectives of a Purple Team Engagement
- 🧠 Transfer knowledge between offensive and defensive teams
- 🛠️ Test detection capabilities against known attacker techniques (e.g. MITRE ATT&CK)
- 🔍 Identify and fix visibility gaps in logging, SIEM, or EDR
- 📈 Continuously improve detection rules, alerts, and playbooks
- 📚 Document lessons learned and embed them in future workflows
🧰 Purple Team Tools & Frameworks
| Category | Tools/Frameworks |
|---|---|
| Simulation | Atomic Red Team, CALDERA, MITRE ATT&CK Navigator |
| Detection Tuning | Sigma Rules, Splunk Search Processing Language (SPL) |
| Collaboration | Jupyter Notebooks, Shared Dashboards, Threat Modelling Tools |
| Automation | SOAR platforms (e.g. Splunk SOAR, TheHive, Shuffle) |
Purple teaming often uses adversary emulation plans based on real-world threat actors to test readiness against known tactics.
🔄 Purple Team Process Example
- Plan the Scenario – Choose a threat actor or attack chain (e.g. ransomware delivery via phishing)
- Execute the Simulation – Red Team carries out controlled attacks
- Observe and Detect – Blue Team monitors and responds
- Review and Tune – Both teams analyse outcomes and improve detection logic
- Rinse & Repeat – Exercises are run iteratively to strengthen defences
✅ When Should You Use a Purple Team?
Purple teaming is ideal when:
- You’ve completed a Red or Blue Team engagement but want better collaboration
- You want to align detection engineering with threat intelligence
- You’re building a mature SOC with adaptive defences
- You want to validate logging coverage and detection capabilities across MITRE ATT&CK TTPs
It’s particularly useful for fine-tuning SIEM rules, EDR detections, and alert fatigue reduction.
💡 Why Purple Teaming Matters
Purple Teaming maximises the value of both Red and Blue efforts. Instead of working in silos, organisations benefit from real-time feedback, better detection coverage, and improved resilience.
🧠 In cybersecurity, collaboration isn’t optional—it’s essential.
Purple teaming fosters a culture where offence informs defence and defence sharpens offence.