11. 01. 2026 Simone Ragonesi Blue Team, Offensive Security, Red Team, SEC4U

Purple Teaming is a MUST, not a PLUS

In modern security programs the separation between offensive and defensive teams is no longer sustainable: attackers iterate faster, tooling evolves daily, and detection gaps are exploited in minutes, not months.
In this environment purple teaming is not an optional maturity enhancement, but it becomes a foundational requirement for organizations that take risk management seriously.

Purple teaming is the structured collaboration between red teams and blue teams with the explicit goal of improving detection, response, and resilience.
Unlike traditional adversarial exercises, purple teaming focuses on continuous feedback, shared objectives, and measurable defensive improvement.

At its core, purple teaming is an operational workflow where:

Offensive techniques are mapped to specific detection hypotheses
Attacks are executed transparently or semi transparently
Telemetry is reviewed in near real time
Detection logic is tuned during or immediately after execution
Defensive coverage is measured against known attacker behaviors

Technical Value to Red Teams

For red teamers, purple teaming significantly increases the quality and impact of offensive operations.

You gain visibility into what actually triggers alerts
You understand which techniques are noisy versus invisible
You can refine tradecraft based on real defensive telemetry
You help prioritize detection gaps that matter, not theoretical ones

Most importantly, your work directly improves the organization’s security posture, rather than ending as a static report.

Technical Value to Blue Teams

For blue teams, purple teaming accelerates detection maturity in ways no vendor product can.

Detection rules are validated against real attacker behavior
False positives are reduced using known benign and malicious activity
Logging gaps are identified and fixed with clear justification
Response playbooks are exercised under realistic conditions

Instead of guessing what attackers might do, blue teams respond to what attackers are actually doing.

The Advantage of an Attacker-Centric SOC

The advantage of working in a well-structured attacker-centric SOC lies in being able to carry out activities under optimal conditions, with professionals trained in both offense and defense.

The purple teaming workflow we follow within the WURTH IT Italy SOC is as follows:

The Threat Intelligence team informs the Red Team about active threat actors and the most commonly used TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures).
The Red Team leverages this intelligence to create adversary simulation scenarios and executes them in laboratory environments.
The Blue Team, which may be kept partially or fully unaware of the simulations, must defend against the attacks.
At the end of the exercise, a debriefing session is held to evaluate performance and define action items for improvement across all teams.

For us, these activities also serve as opportunities for research and development, allowing us to conduct deep dives into topics that we might not otherwise have the time or opportunity to explore.

They enable us to stay at the forefront of innovation in both offensive and defensive techniques, as well as to develop custom tooling tailored to our needs.
It is precisely through these purple teaming activities that we developed and open-sourced Magnet, a Rust-based software that helps automate the testing of detection rules:

Conclusion

Purple teaming is not a luxury reserved for mature organizations.
In a threat landscape defined by speed and adaptation, organizations that fail to align offense and defense will always lag behind attackers: purple teaming closes that gap by turning adversary simulation into actionable defensive improvement.

It is not a plus. It is a must.