Cybersecurity Exercises

Know exactly what your team would do when the scenario branches the wrong way.

Three exercise formats — Tabletop, Purple Team, and Hybrid — each built around the threat actors targeting your sector right now, not a generic playbook.

3 formats

TTX · PTE · Hybrid — matched to your maturity

  • <1 day
  • Scenario customization to exercise-ready
  • 100% threat-informed — real TTPs, real adversaries

THE PROBLEM

Exercises that don't reflect real attacks teach teams the wrong lessons.

Most tabletop exercises use generic scenarios, dated playbooks, and facilitators who have never operated in a real incident. Most purple team engagements test single techniques in isolation. Neither prepares you for how real adversaries actually operate.
Plans written but never stress-tested.
IR playbooks, escalation paths, and communication trees that look complete on paper but fall apart when the scenario branches unexpectedly.
IR gaps: Untested playbooks		 Red and blue teams operating in silos.
Red team findings never make it into detection rules. Blue teams never see what the adversary actually looked like in their environment.
Siloed teams: Lost findings
Generic scenarios, not real threats.
Exercises built around fictional adversaries miss the specific TTPs of the threat actors actually targeting your sector right now.
Non-specific: No sector context		 Findings that don’t drive change.
An exercise report filed in a shared drive. No prioritization, no ownership, no re-test to confirm gaps actually close.
No follow-through: Stale findings

How every exercise runs

From threat brief to findings in four phases.

Applied consistently to every format — TTX, PTE, and Hybrid.

01. Scoping & threat alignment

We map your industry's real threat actors to exercise scenarios. Whoever is actively targeting your sector shapes the scenario.

02. Scenario development

Custom scenario built around your environment, crown jewels, regulatory context, and the specific gaps you need to test.

03. Facilitated execution

Practitioner-led with real-time branching. For PTEs: live emulation with telemetry visible to red and blue simultaneously.

04. Findings & remediation plan

Prioritized gap report with ownership and remediation timelines. Optional re-test to validate fixes are actually closed.

Before and after SCYTHE exercise

What changes when exercises are built on real adversarial intelligence.

The difference between a checkbox exercise and one that actually improves your security posture comes down to whether it reflects real adversary behavior.
Without threat-informed exercises With SCYTHE exercises
--- ---
✕ Generic "ransomware hits payroll" scenario. Team follows script. Nobody learns anything new.
✕ IR playbook tested for the first time during an actual incident.
✕ Red team findings emailed to blue team. Detection rules never updated.
✕ Board asks: "Are we prepared?" Answer: "We think so."
✕ Exercise report filed. No follow-up. Same gaps found a year later.

What every exercise delivers

Every engagement closes with evidence, not just impressions.

  • Detailed findings report: Prioritized gaps, ownership assignments, and remediation guidance formatted for both CISO presentation and engineering action.
  • ATT&CK gap mapping: For PTEs: a before/after ATT&CK heatmap showing exactly which techniques were detected and which were missed.
  • Playbook enhancements: Specific, actionable updates to IR playbooks, escalation paths, and detection rules — not generic best-practice recommendations.
  • Facilitated debrief: Led by the practitioner who ran the exercise — not handed off to a report-writer who wasn't in the room.
  • Optional re-test: Return engagement to validate identified gaps were actually remediated — not just logged in a ticket.
  • Executive summary: Board-ready summary tying exercise findings to business risk — not just technical metrics.

Who uses SCYTHE exercises

Designed for the people who get called first when something goes wrong.

  • TTX · Hybrid
    • CISO / security leadership
    • Need to answer "are we prepared?" with measured evidence — not consultant opinions or assumptions.
  • PTE
    • Detection engineers / SOC leads
    • Need to know which controls fire against real TTPs — with a direct line from findings to rule updates.
  • TTX
    • IR leads / incident commanders
    • Need to pressure-test escalation paths and decision trees under realistic adversarial pressure before the real call comes.
  • PTE · Hybrid
    • Red team leads
    • Need structured engagements that connect offensive findings directly to blue team improvements — not standalone reports.
  • Any format
    • Compliance / risk teams
    • Need documented evidence of exercise activity for NERC CIP, DORA, HIPAA, and TSA requirements.
  • PTE · Hybrid
    • Purple team coordinators
    • Need a repeatable framework that operationalizes CTI into executable scenarios with measurable control improvement.

Common Questions
Q How long does an exercise engagement take?
A TTX engagements run half-day or full-day. PTEs run one to three days depending on scope. Hybrid engagements run two to four days. Scoping and scenario development typically adds two to four weeks prior to exercise day.
Q How is this different from a traditional red team engagement?
A Traditional red team engagements are offensive assessments — the blue team usually doesn’t know it’s happening. SCYTHE PTEs are collaborative by design: red and blue operate together with shared visibility, accelerating detection engineering rather than just scoring an outcome.
Q Can exercises be built around specific regulatory requirements?
A Yes. SCYTHE scenarios are regularly aligned to NERC CIP, DORA, HIPAA, TSA Security Directives, and NIST CSF, with documentation formatted for regulatory evidence requirements.
Q How often should organizations run exercises?
A TTX exercises typically run annually or after major IR changes. PTEs are more effective quarterly. For organizations with continuous compliance requirements, SCYTHE’s Managed Purple Teaming provides recurring structured exercises on a defined cadence.