Managed Security Services
Managed Autonomous Red Teaming
Know whether your defences would stop a real attacker. Not in theory. In your environment, against your controls, right now.
Penetration Testing and Red Teaming Are Not the Same Thing
Most organisations have run a penetration test. It finds vulnerabilities. It produces a report. The security team works through the list.
Red teaming asks a different question entirely: if a sophisticated attacker pursued a specific objective inside your environment right now, would your people, processes, and tools detect and stop them?
That distinction matters to boards and regulators across Australia and New Zealand. APRA CPS 234 expects organisations to test the effectiveness of their information security controls, not just catalogue weaknesses. The Australian Signals Directorate's Essential Eight Maturity Model at Level Three requires adversary emulation. NZISM places the same expectation on New Zealand government agencies and their supply chains. What these frameworks share is an assumption that your organisation genuinely knows whether its defences hold under realistic attack conditions. A vulnerability list does not answer that question. Adversary simulation does.
| Capability | Penetration Test | Managed Autonomous Red Teaming |
|---|---|---|
| Primary goal | Find vulnerabilities in a defined scope | Evaluate detection and response against objective-driven adversary simulation |
| Blue team awareness | Usually informed | Usually uninformed; tests real detection capability |
| Scope | Defined asset or environment | Broad; objective-driven (domain admin, data exfiltration, crown jewel access) |
| What it measures | Exploitable vulnerabilities | Security control effectiveness, SOC fidelity, MTTD, MTTR |
| Cadence | Annual or project-based | Continuous or on-demand; runs in hours |
| Regulatory value | Compliance documentation | Evidence of control effectiveness under CPS 234, Essential Eight Level Three, NZISM |
The NodeZero Platform: Autonomous Adversary Simulation
Insicon Cyber's Managed Autonomous Red Teaming is powered by NodeZero from Horizon3.ai, the platform purpose-built to emulate how real adversaries actually operate, not how textbook threat models suggest they might.
NodeZero operates without agents. It chains misconfigurations, credential exposures, and privilege escalation paths exactly as a skilled attacker would, autonomously identifying routes to your most critical assets. Critically, it produces proof of exploitation, not theoretical risk ratings. Every finding includes the exact commands executed, the attack path taken, and the assets reached.
Where this distinguishes red teaming from penetration testing: NodeZero runs in your environment to test whether your existing controls, your SOC, your EDR, your SIEM, your detection playbooks, see and respond to an adversary. It reveals where your tooling failed to alert, where lateral movement went undetected, and where your incident response workflows broke down under realistic conditions.
Crown Jewel Attack Paths
NodeZero identifies actual paths to your most sensitive assets using real-world exploits. Lateral movement, privilege escalation, and domain compromise scenarios are exposed and prioritised by business impact.
SOC and Detection Validation
Red team operations reveal where your EDR and SIEM failed to detect or block activity. Detection logic is tuned against real attacker telemetry, and incident response workflows are validated under genuine adversary conditions.
MITRE ATT&CK Mapping
Every action taken during an operation maps to specific MITRE ATT&CK techniques. You see exactly which adversary behaviours succeeded in your environment and which your controls blocked.
Phishing Blast Radius Testing
Phishing integrations model what becomes possible when credentials are compromised. Identity-based tests expose attack vectors that purely network-focused assessments miss.
Operations on Demand
Red team operations that once took weeks to plan and execute now run in hours. Trigger on-demand assessments following significant changes, threat intelligence updates, or regulatory review cycles.
Before and After Proof
Remediation effectiveness is verified immediately. Retest the specific attack path after a fix is applied. Boards and auditors receive before-and-after evidence of risk reduction, not assertions.
How Insicon Cyber Manages the Red Team Programme
Technology is the platform. Insicon Cyber's fractional CISOs and security analysts are the programme. Our team configures every operation to your environment and risk profile, interprets findings in your regulatory context, and advises on remediation that actually closes the exposure rather than simply addressing a scan result.
Scoping and Objective Setting
Our team works with you to define red team objectives: which crown jewels matter most, which adversary scenarios are most relevant given your sector and regulatory obligations, and which detection and response capabilities you need to validate. Objectives are tied to your actual threat landscape, not a generic framework checklist.
Autonomous Operation Execution
NodeZero executes the red team operation across your internal network, external attack surface, cloud environments, and Active Directory. It operates without agents, safely in production, identifying and chaining real attack paths toward the agreed objectives. Operations complete in hours, not weeks.
Detection Gap Analysis
Insicon Cyber analysts correlate red team findings with your SOC and SIEM telemetry. We identify which attack techniques triggered alerts and which went undetected, where containment playbooks activated correctly and where they did not, and what the true detection fidelity of your security tooling is under realistic adversary behaviour.
Advisory and Prioritised Remediation
Our fractional CISOs translate findings into a prioritised remediation programme. Not every finding carries the same business risk. We focus your team on root causes: the misconfiguration, credential hygiene gap, or detection logic failure that produced the highest-impact attack paths, rather than an undifferentiated list of vulnerabilities.
Verify and Report
After remediation, NodeZero retests the specific attack paths to verify the fix eliminated the exploitable route. Insicon Cyber produces a formal report with before-and-after evidence suitable for board reporting, audit, and regulatory submission. The report is structured to speak directly to executives and directors, not technical teams.
Adversary Simulation as Regulatory Evidence
Regulators across Australia and New Zealand increasingly expect organisations to demonstrate that security controls actually work, not just that they exist. Managed Autonomous Red Teaming provides the evidence base to meet this expectation across multiple frameworks.
APRA CPS 234
CPS 234 requires APRA-regulated entities to test the effectiveness of their information security controls. Managed Autonomous Red Teaming produces the proof of control effectiveness that periodic vulnerability scans cannot.
Essential Eight Maturity Level Three
ASD's Essential Eight at Maturity Level Three requires adversary emulation testing. NodeZero-powered operations provide the documented, reproducible adversary simulation evidence that Level Three demands.
ISO 27001 (A.18.2.3)
Technical compliance review under ISO 27001 requires organisations to verify that security controls are implemented correctly and effectively. Before-and-after red team reports provide audit-ready evidence for certification and surveillance audits.
NZISM and NCSC New Zealand
New Zealand's information security requirements under NZISM and NCSC NZ guidance expect agencies and their supply chains to understand their actual security posture under threat. Red teaming closes the gap between policy compliance and operational resilience.
ASIC and Board Governance
ASIC's guidance on cyber resilience in listed and licensed entities expects boards to oversee cyber risk with meaningful evidence. Red team reports provide directors with the objective, independent view of control effectiveness that good governance requires.
Privacy Act and Data Protection
Both the Australian Privacy Act and the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 impose obligations on organisations handling personal information to take reasonable steps to secure it. Demonstrating that unauthorised access paths to sensitive data have been identified and closed is a material step toward meeting that obligation.
What Is Included in the Service
Managed Autonomous Red Teaming is delivered as a 12-month subscription with SLA-backed service delivery. Insicon Cyber manages the programme end to end, from operation configuration through to board-ready reporting.
Operations
- Internal network red team operations
- External attack surface assessment
- Cloud environment adversary simulation
- Active Directory credential and privilege attack testing
- Phishing blast radius modelling
- On-demand operations within 48 hours
Detection Validation
- EDR and SIEM detection fidelity testing
- SOC alerting and response validation
- Detection logic tuning recommendations
- Incident response workflow assessment
- MITRE ATT&CK technique coverage mapping
Advisory
- Pre-allocated Insicon Cyber analyst resource
- Fractional CISO advisory on findings
- Prioritised remediation guidance by business risk
- Root cause analysis for systemic weaknesses
- Strategic consultation throughout 12-month term
Reporting
- Executive and board-ready red team reports
- Before-and-after risk reduction evidence
- Remediation verification with retest confirmation
- Change reports showing new attack paths since previous operation
- Audit and regulatory submission-ready documentation
Pricing: Managed Autonomous Red Teaming is priced on a 12-month subscription basis, scoped to your environment size (number of assets) and testing frequency. All subscriptions include professional management, comprehensive reporting, and SLA-backed service delivery. Contact Insicon Cyber to discuss your requirements.
The Insicon Cyber Difference
NodeZero is a powerful platform. What turns it into a genuine red team programme for your organisation is the advisory layer Insicon Cyber provides around it.
Trans-Tasman Regulatory Expertise
Our fractional CISOs hold deep working knowledge of both Australian and New Zealand regulatory obligations. Findings are translated into the language of CPS 234, Essential Eight, NZISM, and ISO 27001, not generic security recommendations.
Integration with Your Security Operations
For organisations using Insicon Cyber's adaptive SOC (aSOC), red team findings integrate directly into unified visibility and active remediation workflows. Detection gaps surfaced in a red team operation are closed within the same managed service engagement.
Board and Executive Communication
Red team results are only valuable if decision-makers understand them. Insicon Cyber produces board-ready briefings that translate technical findings into risk language, giving directors the evidence they need to govern cyber risk with confidence.
SLA-Backed Service Delivery
Every engagement operates under a formal Service Level Agreement with defined escalation pathways for immediate high-risk findings. You are not relying on best-efforts delivery from a team managing dozens of concurrent accounts.
Know Whether Your Defences Hold
Speak to Insicon Cyber's team about a Managed Autonomous Red Teaming programme scoped to your environment, your risk profile, and your regulatory obligations across Australia and New Zealand.
Contact Insicon Cyber