# Adversary Emulation Planning with ATT&CK
Adversary emulation planning represents a methodical approach to cybersecurity assessment that transcends traditional penetration testing by precisely mimicking the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of specific threat actors. Rather than employing generic attack patterns, this methodology uses detailed intelligence about real adversaries to create targeted simulations that mirror actual threat campaigns. The MITRE ATT&CK framework serves as the foundational language that transforms raw threat intelligence into executable testing procedures, enabling security teams to evaluate their defenses against the specific adversaries most likely to target their organization. This approach delivers significantly more actionable results than broad-spectrum security assessments because it tests detection and response capabilities against the precise methods that real attackers use to compromise similar organizations in the same industry sector or geographic region.
Adversary emulation planning is the systematic process of designing and executing cybersecurity assessments that replicate the complete attack lifecycle of identified threat actors, using intelligence-driven TTPs mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework. This methodology requires deep understanding of specific adversary groups, their historical campaigns, preferred toolsets, and typical target selection criteria. The planning phase involves translating threat intelligence reports into actionable test scenarios that can be safely executed against an organization's infrastructure while maintaining operational integrity.
The scope encompasses the entire attack chain from initial access through exfiltration or impact, depending on the chosen adversary profile. Unlike penetration testing, which focuses on identifying vulnerabilities and achieving objectives through any available means, adversary emulation constrains the assessment team to use only the techniques, tools, and procedures documented for the specific threat actor being emulated. This constraint is crucial because it ensures that the exercise tests the organization's ability to detect and respond to realistic threats rather than theoretical attack vectors.
Adversary emulation planning is explicitly not vulnerability assessment, compliance testing, or red team exercises designed to test incident response procedures. While these activities may overlap with emulation outcomes, they lack the intelligence-driven specificity that defines true adversary emulation. The methodology also differs from threat hunting, which seeks unknown threats within existing environments, and from tabletop exercises, which focus on decision-making processes rather than technical detection capabilities.
Critical variants include full-scope emulation, which replicates the entire attack lifecycle, and focused emulation, which concentrates on specific phases such as initial access or lateral movement. Time-boxed emulation compresses typical adversary timelines into manageable assessment windows, while extended emulation maintains realistic operational timelines that may span weeks or months. Each variant serves different organizational needs and resource constraints while maintaining the core principle of intelligence-driven TTP replication.
The adversary emulation planning process begins with threat actor selection based on intelligence analysis that considers industry vertical, geographic location, organizational size, technology stack, and geopolitical factors. Security teams analyze threat intelligence reports, incident response data, and industry sharing organizations to identify the most relevant adversary groups. For example, a financial services organization in North America might prioritize emulating FIN7, Carbanak, or APT1 based on their documented targeting of similar institutions and their specific financial motivations.
Once the target adversary is selected, planners map the threat actor's documented TTPs to specific MITRE ATT&CK techniques. This mapping process requires careful analysis of multiple intelligence sources to create a comprehensive technique portfolio. For APT29 emulation, planners would map documented behaviors including T1566.002 (Spearphishing Link) for initial access, T1055.012 (Process Hollowing) for defense evasion, T1087.002 (Domain Account Discovery) for discovery activities, and T1041 (Exfiltration Over C2 Channel) for data theft. Each technique requires detailed implementation specifications that mirror the adversary's documented methods rather than generic exploitation approaches.
The planning phase establishes detailed operational parameters including target environment scope, acceptable risk levels, coordination procedures with defensive teams, and specific success criteria for each technique. Safety considerations are paramount, requiring comprehensive abort procedures, data handling protocols, and system integrity preservation measures. For cloud environments, planners must consider service dependencies, data sovereignty requirements, and potential cascading effects of simulated attacks.
Tool selection follows adversary documentation precisely, using the same malware families, living-off-the-land techniques, and infrastructure patterns documented in threat intelligence. When exact tools are unavailable or unsafe for testing environments, planners develop functionally equivalent alternatives that produce identical detection signatures and behavioral patterns. For example, emulating Lazarus Group activities might require custom implants that replicate their documented command and control patterns and persistence mechanisms rather than using commercial penetration testing tools.
Execution planning defines the timeline, coordination mechanisms, and measurement criteria. Purple team approaches maintain continuous communication between attackers and defenders, allowing real-time adjustment and learning. Assumed breach scenarios begin with established persistence, focusing on post-compromise activities rather than initial access. Full red team simulations provide no advance warning to defensive teams, testing detection capabilities under realistic conditions.
A comprehensive APT28 emulation scenario illustrates the complete process. Intelligence analysis reveals this group's preference for spear-phishing government contractors using weaponized documents, followed by credential harvesting through X-Agent malware, lateral movement using SMB exploits, and data exfiltration through encrypted channels. The emulation plan maps these behaviors to ATT&CK techniques T1566.001, T1555.003, T1021.002, and T1041 respectively. Execution begins with carefully crafted spear-phishing emails that replicate APT28's documented lures and document templates, followed by simulated malware deployment that produces identical network signatures and host artifacts. The exercise continues through credential theft simulation, lateral movement attempts using documented exploits, and mock data staging activities that mirror the group's historical exfiltration patterns.
Measurement occurs continuously throughout execution, capturing detection timestamps, analyst response actions, and technique success rates. Each ATT&CK technique receives binary detection scoring plus qualitative assessment of response effectiveness. Detection timing analysis reveals whether security operations teams can identify and contain threats within acceptable timeframes based on the adversary's known operational tempo. Prevention measurement determines which techniques fail completely due to security controls rather than being detected post-execution.
Post-execution analysis aggregates results into comprehensive reports that map detection gaps to specific ATT&CK techniques, provide recommendations for security control improvements, and establish baseline metrics for future assessments. Results feed directly into detection engineering workflows, threat hunting priorities, and security control investment decisions. The cyclical nature of adversary emulation planning requires regular updates as threat intelligence evolves and new adversary campaigns emerge.
Adversary emulation planning addresses the fundamental disconnect between generic cybersecurity assessments and the specific threats that organizations actually face in operational environments. Traditional penetration testing often identifies vulnerabilities that may never be exploited by relevant adversaries while missing the subtle techniques that real threat actors use to maintain persistence and avoid detection. This mismatch leads to misallocated security investments, ineffective detection rules, and false confidence in defensive capabilities.
The business impact becomes clear when organizations face actual attacks using TTPs they never tested against. The 2020 SolarWinds compromise demonstrated how advanced persistent threat actors use sophisticated supply chain techniques that bypass traditional security assessments focused on perimeter defenses and known vulnerability patterns. Organizations that had conducted APT29 emulation exercises prior to the SolarWinds incident were better positioned to detect and respond to the attack because their security teams had already developed detection capabilities for the specific techniques used, including DLL side-loading, dormant implants, and legitimate credential abuse.
Without structured adversary emulation planning, security organizations operate with significant blind spots regarding their actual defensive effectiveness against realistic threats. Detection engineering teams may invest heavily in signatures for theoretical attack patterns while remaining vulnerable to documented adversary techniques. Security operations centers may achieve impressive metrics for detecting commodity malware while failing to identify sophisticated threat actors using living-off-the-land techniques and legitimate administrative tools.
The financial consequences extend beyond direct breach costs to include regulatory penalties, competitive disadvantages, and opportunity costs associated with ineffective security investments. Organizations that discover their detection gaps during actual attacks face significantly higher remediation costs than those that identify and address these gaps through planned emulation exercises. The operational disruption caused by sophisticated adversaries often exceeds that of opportunistic attackers, making preparedness through realistic testing even more valuable.
Common misconceptions significantly undermine the effectiveness of adversary emulation programs. Many organizations believe that compliance-focused assessments or annual penetration tests provide adequate validation of their security controls against advanced threats. Others assume that threat intelligence consumption automatically translates to defensive preparedness without testing their ability to detect and respond to specific adversary techniques. These misconceptions create dangerous gaps between perceived and actual security posture, particularly against state-sponsored and financially motivated threat actors who invest heavily in bypassing common security controls.
The strategic importance of adversary emulation planning increases as threat actors become more sophisticated and targeted in their approaches. Generic security measures provide diminishing returns against adversaries who research their targets extensively and customize their TTPs accordingly. Organizations that align their defensive testing with specific threat actor capabilities gain significant advantages in detection accuracy, response effectiveness, and resource allocation efficiency.
The Cyber Defense Army approaches adversary emulation planning through the Threat Intelligence and Detection (TID) domain of the Planetary Defense Model, specifically implementing the Predictive Defense Intelligence (PDI) methodology to "see the threat before it sees you." This approach fundamentally differs from reactive emulation programs by prioritizing intelligence-driven threat actor selection and continuous adaptation based on emerging campaign patterns.
CDA's implementation centers on mission TID-H03 (Threat Actor Emulation Framework), which establishes systematic procedures for translating raw intelligence into executable emulation scenarios. Rather than conducting periodic assessments, CDA maintains continuous adversary modeling that adapts to threat landscape changes in near real-time. This approach ensures that emulation exercises remain current with adversary evolution and emerging campaign techniques rather than testing against static threat profiles that may be months or years outdated.
The CDA methodology emphasizes predictive elements by analyzing adversary development patterns and testing defensive capabilities against likely future TTPs rather than only historical techniques. This forward-looking approach uses machine learning analysis of adversary tool development, infrastructure patterns, and targeting trends to extrapolate probable technique evolution. For example, CDA emulation planning might test defenses against probable APT40 cloud exploitation techniques based on the group's documented infrastructure preferences and emerging cloud attack patterns, even before these techniques appear in finished intelligence reports.
Operational implementation through the PDI methodology requires integration between threat intelligence analysts, detection engineers, and red team operators that exceeds traditional coordination approaches. CDA establishes embedded intelligence analysts within emulation planning teams who provide continuous threat context and real-time campaign updates. This integration ensures that emulation scenarios adapt to adversary campaign changes during exercise planning and execution rather than being locked to static intelligence baselines.
CDA's approach to measurement and improvement cycles operates on accelerated timelines compared to traditional annual or quarterly assessments. The organization implements rolling emulation schedules that continuously test different adversary profiles while maintaining comprehensive coverage of relevant threat actors. Results feed directly into predictive threat modeling that influences future emulation priorities and detection engineering investments. This creates a feedback loop where emulation results enhance threat predictions, which in turn improve subsequent emulation planning effectiveness.
The technological implementation leverages automated ATT&CK mapping tools and adversary behavior modeling systems that reduce planning overhead while maintaining intelligence fidelity. CDA develops custom emulation frameworks that can rapidly adapt documented adversary TTPs into executable scenarios without extensive manual translation processes. These frameworks maintain detailed traceability between intelligence sources and emulation procedures, enabling rapid updates when new intelligence becomes available about specific threat actors.
• Prioritize adversary selection based on documented targeting of your industry sector and geographic region rather than generic threat rankings, using specific intelligence about successful campaigns against similar organizations to guide emulation planning decisions.
• Map every emulation technique to specific MITRE ATT&CK IDs with detailed implementation specifications that mirror documented adversary behaviors rather than using generic penetration testing methods that may not trigger the same detection signatures.
• Establish measurement criteria before exercise execution that focus on detection timing, response effectiveness, and prevention rates for each technique, avoiding subjective assessments that cannot drive concrete security improvements.
• Integrate emulation results directly into detection engineering workflows by using ATT&CK technique gaps to prioritize signature development, threat hunting activities, and security control investments rather than treating exercises as isolated assessments.
• Maintain continuous update cycles for threat actor profiles and emulation scenarios based on emerging intelligence rather than annual planning cycles, ensuring that exercises remain relevant to current adversary capabilities and campaign patterns.
• ATT&CK Framework Implementation for Detection Engineering • Purple Team Operations and Coordination Procedures • Threat Intelligence Integration in Security Operations • Detection Engineering Metrics and Measurement • Advanced Persistent Threat Hunting Methodologies • Predictive Defense Intelligence Implementation
• MITRE Corporation. "ATT&CK Framework for Enterprise." https://attack.mitre.org/ • National Institute of Standards and Technology. "NIST Cybersecurity Framework Version 1.1." NIST Special Publication 800-53. https://www.nist.gov/cyberframework • SANS Institute. "Red Team Operations and Threat Emulation." SANS SEC564 Course Materials. https://www.sans.org/courses/red-team-operations-and-threat-emulation/ • Center for Internet Security. "CIS Controls Version 8." https://www.cisecurity.org/controls/ • Mandiant Threat Intelligence. "Advanced Persistent Threat Groups." FireEye Threat Intelligence Reports. https://www.mandiant.com/resources/insights/apt-groups