Start with an objective
A red team exercise should answer whether an adversary can achieve a meaningful outcome—not whether a tester can accumulate findings.
Define rules and safety controls
Establish targets, prohibited actions, communication channels, emergency stops, data-handling expectations, and trusted contacts before operations begin.
Execute realistic tradecraft
Operations emulate relevant attacker behavior while staying within the agreed safety envelope.
Measure the defense
Track prevention, visibility, detection, investigation, escalation, and containment throughout the exercise.
Debrief collaboratively
The output should improve technology, process, and practitioner knowledge. A useful debrief connects offensive actions to defender observations and concrete changes.
Related next step
Use this resource as a starting point, then adapt it to the systems, business constraints, and threat model that actually apply to your organization.