A Guide to Purple Team Cybersecurity Strategy

In cybersecurity, the term 'purple team' doesn't refer to a new group of people. Instead, it describes a powerful collaborative function where your offensive experts (the red team) and defensive specialists (the blue team) finally work together. Rather than staying in their separate corners, they pool their knowledge in real time to find and fix security gaps much faster, creating a continuous cycle of improvement.

What is Purple Teaming, Really?

To really get what makes a purple team so effective, picture the defence of a medieval castle. Your Blue Team are the guards patrolling the battlements. They are your security operations centre (SOC) analysts, incident responders, and system administrators—the ones constantly watching for trouble, reinforcing weak spots, and sounding the alarm. Their mission is purely defensive.

Your Red Team, on the other hand, is a covert team of specialists hired to test those very defences. These ethical hackers think and act like real-world attackers, probing for hidden entrances and clever ways to bypass security. Their job is to breach the castle and show the king exactly where his defences are weakest.

For years, these two teams were adversaries. The red team would launch a stealthy attack, and weeks later, the blue team would get a formal report outlining all the ways they were defeated. This created a slow and often frustrating process that left critical security holes unaddressed for far too long. With threats evolving so quickly, it became obvious this old-fashioned approach just wasn't cutting it.

Shifting from Adversary to Ally

Purple teaming tears down that old, confrontational model. It’s less of a noun and more of a verb—a philosophy of structured, open collaboration. During a purple team exercise, the red team doesn't hide what they're doing. They openly execute a specific attack technique while the blue team watches and analyses their systems in real time.

This one change completely flips the script. What used to be a pass-or-fail exam becomes an interactive, hands-on training workshop.

• Immediate Feedback: As the red team tries an attack, the blue team can instantly see if their security tools and alerts actually fire as expected.

• Rapid Tuning: If a detection is missed, the blue team can ask, "Why didn't we see that?" and fine-tune their security rules on the spot, often with the red team's expert advice.

• Knowledge Transfer: The blue team starts to understand the attacker's mindset, while the red team gets a much clearer picture of the defensive tools and their real-world limitations.

This collaborative environment is more important than ever. In 2023, businesses in the UK were hit with an estimated 2.39 million cases of cyber crime, a figure that highlights the desperate need for more agile and responsive defences. The siloed approach simply can't keep up.

A purple team exercise turns every simulated attack into a live-fire training drill. It elevates security from a theoretical plan to a practically hardened reality by closing the gap between finding a weakness and actually improving the detection and response capabilities that matter.

Ultimately, the goal is to make the entire security organisation stronger, together. By encouraging open communication and shared goals, purple team cybersecurity ensures that offensive insights translate directly into tangible, measurable improvements in defence. This constant refinement helps build a more resilient and proactive security culture that's ready for whatever comes next. Learn more about the strategic function of a purple team in our detailed glossary entry.

Building Your Purple Team Framework

A successful purple team isn't about hiring a single person or creating a new department. It's about establishing a structured way of working, built on clear roles, responsibilities, and a shared mission. Think of it like assembling a specialist team for a complex project – you need different experts, each with a unique perspective, all pulling in the same direction.

Even if you don’t have formal "red" and "blue" teams, you can still embrace this model by assigning these core functions to people you already have. The trick is to define who plays what part during a collaborative exercise. This simple step ensures every test is organised, efficient, and actually leads to stronger security.

The whole framework really stands on three pillars: the offensive specialists who think like attackers, the defensive specialists who protect your systems, and a vital facilitator who orchestrates the entire show.

The Offensive Specialists (Red Team Function)

First up, you have the offensive specialist. This person, or group, lives and breathes the attacker's mindset. Their main job is to understand and replicate the Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) that real-world adversaries use. These are your ethical hackers and penetration testers, bringing a creative, and sometimes aggressive, approach to testing your security.

But in a purple team exercise, their role isn't just about "winning" by breaking through. Instead, they use their skills to:

• Execute controlled attacks that are based on specific, relevant threat intelligence.

• Explain their methods to the defensive team as they go, often in real-time.

• Confirm if their actions were spotted or if they managed to slip by undetected.

This open-book approach transforms what could be a simple security test into a live, interactive training session for your entire security operation.

The Defensive Specialists (Blue Team Function)

On the other side of the table are the defensive specialists. These are the guardians of your network—the security analysts, incident responders, and engineers who run your security controls day-in and day-out. Their world is all about detection, investigation, and response. They know the company's security information and event management (SIEM) systems, endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools, and network monitoring solutions inside and out.

During a purple team engagement, their responsibilities are to:

• Keep a close watch on security tools for any alerts as the offensive team carries out its plan.

• Investigate potential security events to figure out if they're legitimate threats.

• Tweak detection rules and system configurations on the fly to improve visibility.

This hands-on experience gives them a direct view of how their systems hold up under a live, controlled attack—a lesson far more powerful than just reading a report after the fact. To get a deeper understanding of how these activities are managed, you can read our detailed guide on the role of a Security Operations Centre (SOC).

The Essential Facilitator (Purple Function)

The facilitator might just be the most important role in the entire purple team framework. This person is the director, the translator, and the project manager for the whole exercise. They are the "purple" glue that binds the offensive and defensive functions together, making sure the process stays productive and collaborative.

The facilitator's main job is to make sure knowledge flows freely and translates into real, tangible security improvements. They stop the exercise from becoming an old-school red vs. blue fight and keep everyone focused on the common goal: making the organisation safer.

This person plans the exercise, sets the rules of engagement, and documents every observation and outcome. Most importantly, they guide the conversation, ensuring that the red team's actions and the blue team's findings are clearly understood by everyone involved. Without a strong facilitator, the communication that makes purple team cybersecurity so effective can quickly fall apart. This role is what guarantees every exercise ends with clear, actionable steps for improvement.

How to Run an Effective Purple Team Exercise

Moving from theory to a stronger, practical defence takes more than just getting your red and blue teams in the same room. A successful purple team cybersecurity exercise is a carefully orchestrated event. It’s planned with precision and executed with a focus on collaborative learning, not just pointing out flaws. Think of it as a structured process that travels from high-level goals right down to granular, real-time adjustments.

The whole exercise hinges on breaking away from the traditional "pass or fail" mindset of a penetration test. Instead, it becomes a hands-on workshop where every simulated attack is an open-book lesson for the defence. It's this shift in attitude that truly unlocks value, turning abstract threat intelligence into concrete, measurable improvements.

This diagram shows the core collaborative loop between the offensive, defensive, and facilitator roles within a purple team structure.

As you can see, the process is a continuous cycle. Offensive actions are immediately scrutinised by the defence, and a facilitator guides the knowledge transfer to make sure the outcomes are genuinely actionable.

Phase 1: Define Clear Objectives

Before anyone launches a single attack, you absolutely must know what you're trying to achieve. Vague goals like "test our security" are next to useless. Your objectives need to be specific, measurable, and tied directly to real business risks. This clarity is what keeps the exercise focused and ensures the results actually mean something.

Good objectives are always grounded in current threat intelligence. For instance, if a new strain of ransomware is hammering your industry, a primary goal might be to validate your detection and response capabilities against its specific Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs).

Here are a few examples of strong, actionable objectives:

• Validate Detection: Can our EDR and SIEM successfully detect and alert on TTPs associated with the latest LockBit ransomware variant?

• Test Response Playbooks: Does our incident response plan for data exfiltration actually work when we run a live simulation against it?

• Measure Visibility: How much visibility do our security tools give us into lateral movement techniques within our primary cloud environment?

Phase 2: Establish the Rules of Engagement

With clear goals in place, the next step is to lay down the ground rules. The Rules of Engagement (ROE) document is a non-negotiable component that prevents confusion, manages risk, and makes sure everyone understands the scope and limitations of the exercise. It's the official playbook for the whole engagement.

This document has to be agreed upon by all participants—offensive, defensive, and any key stakeholders—before the exercise even thinks about starting. It’s your safety net, clearly defining what is and isn't allowed, which systems are in scope, and what the communication protocols look like.

A solid ROE should clearly outline:

1. Scope: Which specific IP ranges, applications, or user accounts are part of the test? Crucially, which ones are explicitly off-limits?

2. Timeline: What are the exact start and end dates and times for the exercise?

3. Approved TTPs: Which specific attack techniques, often from frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK, will be simulated?

4. Deconfliction Process: How will the blue team tell the difference between a simulated attack and a real one? This often involves a pre-agreed code word or a dedicated communication channel.

5. Emergency Stop: What’s the procedure for immediately halting the exercise if an unforeseen issue crops up?

The goal of a purple team exercise is not to cause a real incident. The ROE is the formal handshake that ensures the test provides maximum learning value with minimal operational risk.

Phase 3: Execute and Collaborate in Real Time

This is where the magic really happens. Unlike a traditional red team assessment where attacks are kept secret, this phase is all about open communication and "over-the-shoulder" observation. The offensive specialist executes a planned attack step, and then everyone hits pause to discuss what just happened.

The facilitator steers the conversation with key questions: Did the SIEM fire an alert? Did the EDR block the action? If not, why not? This immediate feedback loop is incredibly powerful. The blue team gets to see exactly what the attack traffic looks like and, with the red team’s direct input, can start tuning their detection rules right there on the spot.

This real-time collaboration means that insights are captured and acted upon instantly, rather than getting lost in a report that lands on someone's desk weeks later. The process is iterative: test, observe, discuss, tune, and then test again. This cycle is what rapidly closes security gaps and builds the defensive team's muscle memory.

Of course, documenting these findings is critical. Using a structured platform can make evidence collection much smoother and lead to more consistent deliverables. For consultants or teams managing multiple tests, understanding the principles of effective penetration testing reporting is a valuable parallel skill.

The Essential Purple Team Tech Stack

A successful purple team cybersecurity programme isn’t just about getting clever people in a room. To make it work, you need a shared technology stack that lets both the offensive and defensive pros see the same data, use the same terminology, and track everything from a single source. Without that common ground, collaboration can easily fall apart into a mess of conflicting reports and missed opportunities.

Think of the tech stack as the digital workbench for the entire exercise. It's the bridge between the red team's simulated attacks and the blue team's detection capabilities. This is where theory meets reality, creating a tight feedback loop that genuinely improves security.

This collaborative approach became critical as threats intensified. By 2023, purple teaming was a key strategy in UK cybersecurity, especially as organisations grappled with a 17% surge in ransomware between 2021 and 2022. As Jumpsec’s research on UK ransomware trends highlighted, the continued rise in attacks demanded smarter, more integrated defensive efforts.

Tools for the Offensive Team

The red team’s job is to act like a real adversary, and they need sophisticated tools to do it. These platforms are all about pushing the organisation's defences to their limits by mimicking a wide array of attack techniques.

Their toolkit generally falls into two main categories:

• Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) Platforms: These are automated systems that constantly poke and prod your security controls. They can run thousands of known attack patterns (TTPs) in a safe, controlled way, giving you instant feedback on what your systems caught and what slipped through the net.

• Command and Control (C2) Frameworks: For more hands-on, targeted scenarios, red teams turn to frameworks like Cobalt Strike or the open-source Metasploit. These tools let them simulate what happens after the initial breach—setting up persistent access, moving across the network, and trying to get data out.

Tools for the Defensive Team

The blue team’s toolkit is all about visibility, detection, and response. They rely on technology that can sift through enormous amounts of data from across the business to spot the faint signals of an attack.

The core of their arsenal includes:

• Security Information and Event Management (SIEM): This is the central nervous system for security data. A SIEM gathers logs and alerts from servers, firewalls, and applications into one place. During an exercise, the blue team is glued to the SIEM, waiting to see if the red team's actions trigger the alerts they’ve configured.

• Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): EDR tools give security teams a microscopic view of what’s happening on individual laptops and servers. They're vital for catching malicious processes or file changes that bigger, network-level tools might not see.

The Connective Tissue: Centralised Reporting

So often, the real failure point in a purple team exercise isn't the attack or the defence—it's the documentation. When observations, screenshots, and logs are scattered across different documents and emails, valuable insights get lost. This is where a dedicated reporting platform becomes the single most important tool in the stack.

A centralised reporting platform is the connective tissue of a purple team. It transforms scattered observations from offensive and defensive tools into a coherent narrative of risks, gaps, and required actions, ensuring every finding leads to a tangible improvement.

This is exactly the problem a platform like Vulnsy is built to solve. Instead of trying to piece together a story from different notes and tools, both teams can log their findings in one shared workspace. The attacker can upload evidence of a successful exploit, and right alongside it, the defender can attach logs showing why a detection failed. It creates a perfect, time-stamped record of the entire engagement.

For consultants and MSSPs managing multiple client exercises, this streamlined evidence collection and consistent reporting is a lifesaver. It cuts out the painful, manual work of building reports, letting everyone focus on what really matters: working together to close security gaps and make the organisation safer.

Measuring the Impact of Your Programme

So, how do you actually prove your purple team cybersecurity programme is worth the investment? To justify the time and people involved, you need to go beyond a simple "we passed" or "we failed" verdict. The real measure of success lies in tangible, data-backed improvements to your security posture. It’s all about tracking what matters and showing those wins to the people who sign the cheques.

A good purple team exercise isn't a one-off event; it's a springboard for getting better, week after week. Success isn’t about how many vulnerabilities the red team finds. It's about how much faster and more reliably your defenders can spot and stop them. The aim is to show a clear return on investment (ROI) through sharper detection, quicker response, and a real-world reduction in business risk.

This means we need to stop chasing vanity metrics and start focusing on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that tell a story of genuine progress.

Identifying Meaningful Security KPIs

To measure how well your programme is doing, you have to track metrics that directly reflect how prepared your defenders are. These KPIs need to be specific, measurable, and linked back to the goals you set before the exercise began. They provide the hard evidence you need to show that red and blue collaboration is paying off.

Here are a few of the most important metrics to keep an eye on:

• Mean Time to Detect (MTTD): Put simply, this is the average time it takes your blue team to spot malicious activity once the red team has made a move. If you can show a steady drop in MTTD for specific attack techniques, you’ve got a powerful sign of improvement.

• Mean Time to Respond (MTTR): This tracks the average time from the moment an alert fires to the point where the incident is contained and neutralised. A lower MTTR is great evidence that your response playbooks and automation are getting more effective.

• Detection Rule Efficacy: Count the number of new, high-quality detection rules created directly from an exercise. It’s also worth measuring the drop in false positives from older rules that were tweaked and improved during the collaboration.

• Technique Coverage: Frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK are brilliant for this. You can literally map out which attacker techniques your security controls can now detect, block, or alert on. Seeing that coverage map fill out over time gives everyone a clear visual of your growing defensive muscle.

These data points turn the fuzzy idea of "getting better at security" into cold, hard proof.

Structuring Reports for Stakeholders

Having great data is one thing; communicating it effectively is another. A solid report is crucial for turning technical details into business-friendly insights for your leadership team. Forget about writing a novel – your report should be a clear, concise summary that gets straight to the point.

The best reports don't get bogged down in the technical weeds of an attack. Instead, they focus on the direct impact of the improvements you've made. Stakeholders want to know how the investment in purple teaming has made the company safer.

A powerful report should always include these key elements:

1. Executive Summary: Start at the 30,000-foot view. State what you set out to do and immediately flag the big wins. Something like, "We reduced our average detection time for common ransomware techniques by 40%" grabs attention.

2. KPI Improvement Metrics: This is where your data shines. Use simple charts and graphs to show the downward trend in MTTD and MTTR, or the upward curve of your ATT&CK coverage. Visuals make the progress undeniable.

3. Actionable Recommendations: Be specific. Detail what was fixed during the exercise (e.g., "Deployed three new SIEM rules to catch lateral movement"). Then, list any outstanding items that need more budget or a strategic decision from above.

4. Demonstrated ROI: This is where you connect the dots for the business. Explain how spotting an attack minutes faster or blocking a critical intrusion path directly prevents financial loss, reputational damage, or operational chaos.

By focusing on these metrics and presenting them with clarity, you can show the immense value of a collaborative purple team cybersecurity programme. This data-driven approach doesn’t just justify the programme’s existence; it secures the buy-in you need to build a truly resilient security culture.

Scaling Purple Teaming for Any Organisation

The collaborative power of purple team cybersecurity isn’t some exclusive club reserved for giant corporations with bottomless security budgets. Any organisation, no matter its size, can embrace a purple mindset to sharpen its defences. The trick is to scale the approach, zeroing in on specific, high-impact exercises instead of trying to mimic a full-blown cyber assault.

For smaller businesses, this means ditching the notion that you need formally separate red and blue teams. Instead, you can create the functions of these teams using the talent you already have. For example, a skilled systems administrator could put on their attacker hat for a day, guided by open-source tools to test a specific MITRE ATT&CK technique. The goal here is focused learning, not a sprawling and complex engagement.

This way of thinking makes collaborative defence both accessible and incredibly effective, even when resources are tight. It’s all about shifting the focus from rigid team structures to practical, measurable outcomes.

Strategies for Small Teams

For a small or medium-sized business (SMB), running a purple team exercise can be refreshingly straightforward. The name of the game is precision and efficiency. A single, well-defined test can provide a massive return by validating a critical security control or incident response procedure.

Think about these practical, scalable models:

• Single-Player Mode: A security analyst can effectively wear both hats. They might use an automated tool to launch a safe, known attack pattern and then immediately pivot to their SIEM to see if the right alerts fired as expected.

• Pairing Up: An infrastructure engineer and a security analyst can team up for a few hours. The engineer could try to run a suspicious PowerShell script while the analyst watches the EDR console in real-time.

• Threat-of-the-Month Club: Set aside a short, regular slot each month to test one specific TTP relevant to your industry. This builds a consistent rhythm of validation and fosters a proactive culture without demanding a huge time commitment.

The essence of scaling purple teaming is focusing on the function, not the formal team. It’s about creating a structured moment for offensive thinking and defensive validation, which is a powerful strategy available to any organisation.

Purple Teaming as a Service for Consultants and MSSPs

If you're a cybersecurity consultant or a Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP), offering purple team exercises as a premium service is a fantastic way to add value. Clients are moving beyond standard vulnerability scans; they want tangible proof that their defences actually work. A focused purple team engagement gives them exactly that.

The key to making this profitable lies in efficient execution and reporting. Consultants can package short, time-boxed exercises that target a client’s biggest worries, like their resilience to ransomware or their ability to detect data exfiltration. This provides clear, actionable results without the hefty price tag of a full red team assessment.

A solid workflow is absolutely vital here. Using a reporting platform like Vulnsy can be a game-changer, as it centralises evidence collection and helps you deliver high-quality, consistent reports without wrestling with manual formatting for hours. This approach allows a consultant or MSP to demonstrate tangible improvements to a client’s security posture, showcasing a mature and effective approach to managing cyber risk.

Got Questions About Purple Teaming?

We get it. It's a newer concept, and you're probably wondering how it all works in practice. Here are some of the most common questions we hear.

How Often Should We Run a Purple Team Exercise?

There's no single magic number here; it really depends on your security maturity and the threats you're facing. For most teams just getting started, a focused, quarterly exercise is a great rhythm. You can pick a specific threat actor's TTPs or a new defensive control and really dig in.

More advanced programmes often weave this into a continuous testing cycle. The key takeaway? Consistency beats intensity. Regular, focused efforts will always deliver more value than a massive, once-a-year event.

Is 'Purple Team' a Job Title or Just a Way of Working?

For the vast majority of organisations, it’s a collaborative function, not a formal team with its own org chart. Think of it as a mindset or a project-based working group that brings your red and blue team experts together for a common cause.

While some massive enterprises might have a dedicated "Purple Team Lead" to coordinate things, anyone can get the benefits. It's all about creating a structured space for your existing offensive and defensive pros to work together.

What's the Biggest Hurdle to Getting Started?

Honestly, the biggest challenge is almost always cultural, not technical. It means breaking down those old-school silos where the red and blue teams see each other as adversaries.

You have to build trust, set clear rules of engagement, and shift the focus. The goal isn't for one side to 'win' – it's for everyone to work together to make the organisation genuinely more secure. Getting that buy-in is everything.

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