Red Team

A red team report is the only thing that survives the engagement. The access you got, the shells you dropped, the domain admin you owned — none of it matters if the report doesn’t communicate it clearly to the people who need to act on it. Most red team reports fail in one of two ways: they’re written for other red teamers (and executives ignore them), or they’re dumbed down for executives (and the technical team can’t remediate). A good report speaks to both audiences at once. ...

Cobalt Strike costs over $5,000 per year per operator. For most red teamers — especially independent consultants, students, or teams running lean — that’s a non-starter. And even if you can afford it, Cobalt Strike’s signatures are burned into every major EDR’s detection logic after a decade of real-world adversary use. The question isn’t whether alternatives exist. They do. The question is which one fits your operation, skill level, and threat model. ...

Two certifications. One built around the full lifecycle of a real red team engagement. The other still the most recognized name in offensive security hiring. If you’re choosing between CRTO and OSCP in 2026, you’re asking the right question at the right time. Both are practical, hands-on, and respected. But they serve different purposes — and picking the wrong one first can cost you months of prep and a thousand dollars you didn’t need to spend yet. ...

Two certifications. One practical, affordable, and designed for real-world pentesting. The other expensive, industry-standard, and still the most recognized name on a resume. If you’re choosing between PNPT and OSCP in 2026, you need the honest answer — not the Reddit echo chamber, not the sponsored review. Here’s what both certs actually are, who they’re for, and which one belongs in your roadmap first. What Is PNPT? The Practical Network Penetration Tester (PNPT) is a certification from TCM Security , built by Heath Adams (The Cyber Mentor). It’s entirely practical — no multiple choice, no CTF gimmicks. ...

If your C2 server IP ends up in a threat intel feed, your engagement is over. Redirectors exist to prevent exactly that. A redirector sits between your operator machine and your implant. The implant only ever talks to the redirector. Your actual C2 — Sliver, Havoc, Cobalt Strike — sits behind it, invisible. If the blue team burns the redirector, you spin up another one in ten minutes. The C2 keeps running. ...

Havoc is an open-source command-and-control framework that’s quickly become the go-to alternative to Cobalt Strike for red teamers who can’t justify the $5,000/seat price tag. It’s actively developed, has solid evasion capabilities, and the implant — called Demon — supports most of what you need for a real engagement. This guide walks you through everything: installation, listener setup, Demon payload generation, post-exploitation, and evasion basics. What Is Havoc C2? Havoc is a modern C2 framework built by HavocFramework . The architecture follows the standard red team playbook: ...

Sliver is an open-source C2 framework built by BishopFox. It was designed to replace Cobalt Strike for red teams who can’t or won’t pay $5,000+ per year. Since its release, it’s become one of the most serious alternatives — used by actual red teams, not just CTF players. This guide covers everything: installation, server setup, operator sessions, generating implants, running post-exploitation, and avoiding the common mistakes that get you caught. ...

Command-and-control frameworks are the backbone of every red team operation. Once you have a foothold, C2 is what keeps you in — and what determines whether you get caught. The market shifted hard in the last few years. Cobalt Strike’s $5,000/year price tag pushed teams toward open-source alternatives, and those alternatives caught up fast. Sliver and Havoc aren’t budget substitutes anymore — they’re legitimate tools with their own advantages. This guide breaks down all three: what they do well, where they fall short, and how to decide which one belongs in your toolkit. ...

Once you have credentials or a shell on one host, the real game begins: moving through the network without getting caught. Lateral movement in Active Directory is where most engagements are won or lost. This is the full playbook. Every technique. The tools, the commands, the detection notes, and the OPSEC considerations that separate a successful engagement from a blocked one. What Is Lateral Movement in AD? Lateral movement is the process of using access on one system to gain access to others. In an Active Directory environment, this is especially powerful because credentials, tickets, and tokens are often reusable across the domain. ...

What Is a DCSync Attack? DCSync is a credential dumping technique that abuses Active Directory’s replication mechanism. Instead of running code on a Domain Controller, an attacker with the right privileges impersonates a Domain Controller and requests password data directly from another DC using the MS-DRSR (Directory Replication Service Remote Protocol). The result: you get NTLM hashes, Kerberos keys, and plaintext passwords (in some configurations) for any account in the domain — including krbtgt and Domain Admins — without ever touching LSASS on a DC. ...