Many organizations assume their detections will activate during a real intrusion. Yet when Lares runs adversary simulations, we routinely observe well-managed environments failing to detect privilege escalation, cloud role misuse, or lateral identity movement.

The gap is not due to weak teams. It is due to the difference between what tools claim to detect and what they actually observe during real attacker behavior.

Purple Teaming closes that gap faster than any other exercise.

Why Purple Teaming Works

Purple Team engagements combine offensive and defensive disciplines in real time. Unlike pentests or audits, Purple Teaming is not about scoring a pass or fail. It is a collaborative engineering exercise designed to improve security controls.

A typical cycle looks like this:

1. Offense executes a realistic attack technique
2. Defense observes and responds
3. Both teams review what worked and what did not
4. Detection logic is tuned
5. The same technique is retested
6. Improvements are measured immediately

This loop builds capability faster than traditional detection engineering.

What Improves During Purple Teaming

Identity Detection
Most identity misuse goes undetected. Purple Teaming exposes this by simulating real authentication abuse and escalation behavior.

Cloud Telemetry
Cloud audit logs often exist without meaningful detections. Purple Teaming identifies where monitoring gaps lead to blind spots.

EDR and SIEM Rules
Tools generate plenty of data. Purple Teaming uncovers WHY signals were not acted upon.

Incident Response Skills
Teams improve their ability to interpret signals, prioritize action, and coordinate response.

Cross-team Understanding
Security, cloud, identity, and SOC teams align around the same threat picture.

Why CISOs Use Purple Teaming

Purple Teaming creates evidence.

Not tool dashboards.
Not theoretical analysis.
Evidence of defensive performance.

This is what CISOs need for resource justification, team development, and board communication.

If you want to see what a Purple Team cycle looks like, Lares can walk you through the process.