Red Team Exercises & Insider Threat Response Drills  

Organisations that protect critical assets cannot rely on theory alone, they need practical, repeatable ways to test whether people, processes and technology work together under pressure. Our Red Team Exercises and Insider Threat Response Drills simulate realistic insider scenarios so your teams can practise detection, containment, investigation and recovery in a controlled, legally compliant environment. Each engagement is designed to expose the operational gaps that only show up when systems are stressed, blind spots in monitoring, unclear escalation paths, evidence handling errors, or coordination failures between HR, legal, IT and executive leadership.

We begin by agreeing clear objectives with leadership and defining the scope, rules of engagement and success criteria. Exercises are built from plausible insider scenarios that reflect your risk profile, drawn from the MPS People Security Risk Management scenario modelling approach and real world case data.

Prior to any live activity, we ensure governance and legal approvals are in place and that privacy, employment law and safety are considered so the exercise does not inadvertently breach statutory obligations. For less intrusive validation, tabletop simulations and facilitated hotwashes offer immediate insight into decision making and communication flows. For higher assurance we run live red team sequences that test technical controls, insider pathways and the organisation’s forensic readiness.

During exercises, we monitor how alerts are generated and triaged, how the Insider Threat Incident Response Team mobilises, and whether containment actions preserve evidentiary value while limiting business disruption.

We also test integration with business continuity plans so recovery actions run in parallel to investigative activity, mirroring the coordination required in real incidents. Where appropriate, external stakeholders, such as contracted forensic providers or law enforcement liaison officers are included to validate escalation pathways and contract arrangements for rapid specialist support.

After each drill or exercise we deliver a structured postexercise review that prioritises findings and translates them into a practical remediation plan. Our approach follows a blameless lessons learnt methodology. The objective is to surface systemic weaknesses and deliverable improvements, not to attribute fault.

The after action report includes revised playbook text, suggested changes to classification and triage rules, recommended updates to monitoring thresholds, and actioned assignments for policy, technical and training fixes. We also include recommendations for ongoing KPI adjustments so your insider threat program can measure improvement over time and demonstrate due diligence to executives and auditors.

Engagements range from rapid readiness checks and tabletop workshops to multiday red team operations with full evidence collection and forensic validation. Each engagement is tailored for your sector, regulatory obligations and risk tolerance, and we ensure plans are reviewed and updated after exercises so learning is embedded.

If you need to demonstrate preparedness to a regulator or contract holder, or simply want to reduce the chance that an insider incident becomes an organisational crisis, our red team and drill services provide a proven way to strengthen people, process and technology together.

Arrange a confidential conversation to discuss an exercise calibrated to your environment and risk profile. We will help you define objectives, select the appropriate insider threat scenario type and prepare an evidence based remediation roadmap to raise your insider risk readiness.