What Is Purple Teaming? How It Works, Exercise Types And Who Needs It

Purple teaming is a collaborative security exercise in which offensive testers (the red team) and defenders (the blue team) work side by side. The red team runs specific attack techniques, the blue team checks in real time whether those techniques were logged, detected, alerted on or blocked, and both sides fix gaps before moving to the next technique. The goal is not to “win” but to measurably improve detection and response. Purple teaming suits organizations that already have a SOC or detection function and want to know whether it actually catches what it is supposed to catch.

This guide covers how purple teaming works, the main exercise types, the frameworks and tools teams use, how it differs from red teaming and penetration testing, and who gets the most from it. If you are ready to hire help, see our list of top purple teaming providers.

Purple Teaming In Plain Terms

“Purple” is red plus blue. In a traditional red team engagement, the attackers operate covertly and the defenders find out what happened from a report weeks later. That tests whether the organization can detect a realistic intrusion, but it teaches the blue team slowly. Purple teaming removes the secrecy. Both teams agree in advance which techniques will be tested, sit together (physically or on a call), and review each technique as it happens.

A purple team is usually a function or an exercise, not a separate permanent team. Some larger organizations do have dedicated purple team leads or detection engineers who run exercises continuously, but most run purple team engagements on a schedule, often with an outside firm supplying the offensive side.

How A Purple Team Exercise Works

Exercises vary in size, but most follow the same flow.

1. Pick The Threat

The team chooses a threat actor, a campaign or a set of techniques relevant to the business, usually drawn from threat intelligence and mapped to MITRE ATT&CK. A bank might emulate a financially motivated group known for business email compromise and ransomware. A manufacturer might focus on techniques used against operational technology networks.

2. Build The Test Plan

The chosen behaviors are broken into individual test cases: run a specific credential dumping method, create a scheduled task for persistence, move laterally with a remote execution tool, exfiltrate data over a particular protocol. For each test case, the blue team writes down what it expects to see: a log entry, an EDR alert, a SIEM rule firing, or a block.

3. Execute And Observe Together

The red team runs each test case and announces it. The blue team checks its tools. Each result is scored: not logged, logged but no alert, alerted, or blocked. When something is missed, the two sides dig into why on the spot, such as a log source not being collected, a rule that is too narrow, or an EDR policy in audit mode.

4. Fix And Retest

Detection engineers tune or write rules, often during the exercise itself, and the red team reruns the technique to confirm the fix works. This immediate feedback loop is the main advantage over a report-driven model.

5. Report And Track Over Time

Results are recorded per technique so the organization can track detection coverage across exercises. Many teams use VECTR, an open-source tool from Security Risk Advisors that records red team actions and blue team outcomes in the same test case, to measure progress from one exercise to the next.

[EXPERT QUOTE: White Knight Labs, John Stigerwalt, on what makes a purple team exercise produce lasting detection improvements rather than a one-day demo]

Common Purple Team Exercise Types

Adversary Emulation Exercises

The red team emulates a specific, named threat actor end to end, following that group’s known techniques in order. This tests whether defenses hold up against a realistic attack chain, not just isolated techniques.

Technique-Based Or Atomic Testing

Instead of a full scenario, the team runs a list of individual ATT&CK techniques, one at a time, to measure detection coverage broadly. Open-source libraries such as Atomic Red Team, a library of small, focused tests mapped to ATT&CK, are popular for this format because each test is quick to run and easy to repeat.

Detection Engineering Sprints

Here the focus is narrower: a defined area such as identity attacks, cloud control plane abuse or ransomware precursors. The red team runs variations of a few techniques repeatedly while detection engineers build and tune rules until coverage is solid.

Post-Red-Team Replays

After a covert red team engagement, the red team walks the blue team through each step it took and replays key actions so defenders can see what their tools recorded. This turns a red team report into concrete detection work. Our guide to red teaming vs penetration testing explains the covert engagement that usually comes first.

Tabletop-Plus-Technical Exercises

Some organizations combine a tabletop exercise, where leaders walk through incident response decisions, with live technical testing. This tests both the technology and the escalation paths, communication and decision-making that follow an alert.

Continuous Or Automated Purple Teaming

Automated adversary emulation tools run technique libraries on a schedule so detection coverage is checked between human-led exercises. Open-source examples include MITRE Caldera, an automated adversary emulation platform, and commercial breach and attack simulation tools do similar work. See our list of breach and attack simulation platforms for that category.

Frameworks That Shape Purple Teaming

• MITRE ATT&CK is the shared vocabulary. Test cases, detections and coverage maps are almost always organized by ATT&CK technique.
• The Purple Team Exercise Framework (PTEF) from SCYTHE is a free, open-source guide to planning, running and measuring exercises, including a maturity model and outcome scoring.
• Regulatory testing frameworks are starting to require it. In the EU, the technical standards for threat-led penetration testing under DORA (Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1190, Article 12) require a purple teaming exercise during the closure phase, on topics chosen jointly by the blue team and the testers, no later than 10 weeks after active red team testing ends.

Purple Teaming vs Red Teaming vs Penetration Testing

Factor	Penetration Testing	Red Teaming	Purple Teaming
Main goal	Find and prove exploitable vulnerabilities	Test whether a realistic attack reaches its objective undetected	Improve detection and response, technique by technique
Blue team involvement	Usually none during testing	Unaware or limited, by design	Full, in real time
Stealth	Not a priority	Central	None, every action is announced
Typical output	Vulnerability report with fixes	Narrative report of the attack path and detection gaps	Detection coverage map, new or tuned rules
Best for	Finding weaknesses in systems and apps	Testing the whole organization’s resilience	Making the SOC and detection stack measurably better
Prerequisites	Defined scope	Mature security program	A SOC or detection function with someone to tune rules

These are complementary, not competing. A common sequence is a penetration test to clear obvious vulnerabilities, a red team engagement to see what a realistic adversary achieves, then purple teaming to close the detection gaps the red team exposed. For a deeper comparison, read purple team vs red team.

Who Needs Purple Teaming?

Organizations With A SOC Or MDR Provider

If you pay for a SIEM, an EDR platform or a managed detection provider, purple teaming is the most direct way to check that investment works against the techniques you care about. It often turns up missing log sources and silent rules that nobody noticed.

Teams That Have Already Done Red Team Engagements

If red team reports keep listing the same detection gaps, the problem is follow-through, not discovery. Purple teaming converts findings into tested detections.

Regulated Financial Entities

EU financial entities selected for threat-led penetration testing under DORA must include a purple teaming exercise in the closure phase, and similar collaborative elements appear in other intelligence-led testing schemes.

Organizations Building Detection Engineering Skills

Purple teaming is one of the fastest ways for junior analysts to learn what attacks look like in their own telemetry. Some teams pair it with formal training. See our list of red team training providers.

When Purple Teaming Is Too Early

If you do not yet have centralized logging, endpoint detection or anyone responsible for writing detections, purple teaming will mostly confirm that nothing is detected. Start with foundational controls and a standard penetration test, then add purple teaming once there is a detection function to improve.

How To Get Started

• Pick three to five threat actors or scenarios that matter for your industry and map them to ATT&CK.
• Start small, with 20 to 40 test cases in one or two tactics, such as credential access and lateral movement, rather than the whole matrix.
• Agree on scoring before you start, so results are comparable between exercises.
• Book detection engineering time during and after the exercise. Without it, the exercise produces a list instead of fixes.
• Repeat on a schedule, quarterly or twice a year, and track coverage over time.
• Decide what to outsource. Many teams bring in an outside firm for the offensive side and keep detection work in house.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is A Purple Team A Separate Team?

Usually not. In most organizations, purple teaming is an exercise or way of working that brings existing red and blue team members together. Some large security programs have dedicated purple team roles that coordinate exercises and track detection coverage.

How Long Does A Purple Team Exercise Take?

Focused exercises can run in a few days. Broader adversary emulation programs may run over several weeks, with time set aside afterward for detection engineering and retesting.

Can Purple Teaming Replace A Penetration Test?

No. Purple teaming measures detection and response. A penetration test finds and proves exploitable vulnerabilities and is what compliance frameworks usually require. Most mature programs do both.

Can Purple Teaming Be Automated?

Partly. Tools such as Caldera, Atomic Red Team and commercial breach and attack simulation platforms can run techniques on a schedule. The analysis, rule tuning and judgment about what matters still need people.

What Does A Purple Team Exercise Produce?

A good exercise leaves behind more than a report. Expect a per-technique results table showing what was logged, alerted on or blocked, a list of detection gaps with owners, new or tuned detection rules that were retested during the exercise, and recommendations for missing log sources or tool configuration. Over several exercises, those results become a coverage map that shows leadership how detection has improved.

Conclusion

Purple teaming takes the attacker’s knowledge from offensive testing and puts it directly into the hands of defenders, one technique at a time. It works best for organizations that already have detection tools and people to tune them, and it is most valuable when repeated and measured over time rather than run once.

To find a partner, see our list of top purple teaming providers and compare it with top red teaming companies. For the differences between approaches, read purple team vs red team, or browse everything in our penetration testing hub.