What purple teaming actually is¶

Purple teaming isn’t a third team wearing purple shirts. It’s a methodology for red and blue teams to work together, combining offensive testing with defensive validation in coordinated cycles.

Beyond red plus blue¶

Red team alone: Tests defences but defenders often don’t learn why they failed or what techniques were used. Findings arrive in a report weeks later when context is lost.

Blue team alone: Builds defences based on assumptions about attacks. May miss realistic adversary TTPs or focus on wrong priorities.

Purple team: Red team shares techniques in real-time or shortly after using them. Blue team tests detection and response against actual attack simulations. Both sides learn continuously rather than episodically.

The purple team value¶

Accelerated learning: Instead of waiting for real incidents, teams practise against simulated attacks with full context about what’s happening.

Detection validation: Blue team discovers what their tools actually detect vs. what they hope they detect. Purple exercises reveal blind spots before real attackers exploit them.

Shared language: Red and blue teams develop common understanding of TTPs, defensive effectiveness, and improvement priorities using frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK.

Prioritised improvements: Instead of endless security backlog, teams focus on gaps revealed through testing. Data-driven decisions about where to invest defensive resources.

Cultural change: Purple teaming breaks down “offense vs. defense” mentality. Teams work toward shared goal: organisational resilience.