Atomic Red Team
Atomic Red Team
One-liner: A library of small, testable adversary technique executions mapped to MITRE ATT&CK, used to validate detections and controls.
🎯 What Is It?
Open-source tests that safely emulate specific TTPs ("atomics"). Each test includes prerequisites, execution steps, and cleanup. Useful for purple teaming, detection gap analysis, and SIEM/EDR validation.
🤔 Why It Matters
- Proves whether detections actually fire in your environment.
- Enables continuous regression testing of controls.
- Standardises TTP coverage across teams.
🔬 How It Works
Core Principles
- Map tests to ATT&CK technique IDs (e.g., T1486).
- Keep tests minimal and reproducible.
- Measure outcomes (alerts, logs, telemetry).
Technical Deep-Dive
- Runner:
Invoke-AtomicTestPowerShell module on Windows; YAML test specs. - Telemetry targets: Sysmon, Windows Event Log, EDR, network sensors.
- CI/CD option: schedule atomics in non-prod with guardrails.
🛡️ Detection & Prevention
How to Detect
- Build detections from known telemetry signatures per atomic.
How to Prevent / Mitigate
- Use atomics to validate prevent/contain policies (ASR, SRP, EDR).
🎤 Interview Angles
- "How do you use Atomic Red Team to validate a ransomware detection?"
✅ Best Practices
- Tag tests with owner, coverage, and success criteria.
- Capture event IDs and artifacts as acceptance criteria.
❌ Common Misconceptions
- Atomics are not malware; they are safe, minimal emulations when used per guidance.