Abhijith "Abx" B R - Offensive Cyber Security Operations: Mastering Breach and Adversarial Attack Simulation Engagements - DCTLV2025

Name of Training: Offensive Cyber Security Operations: Mastering breach and adversarial attack simulation engagements
Trainer(s): Abhijith "Abx" B R
Dates: August 11-12, 2025
Time: 8:00 am to 5:00 pm PT
Venue: Las Vegas Convention Center
Cost: $1,500

Course Description: 

This hands-on workshop has been created to provide participants with a better understanding of offensive security operations, breach and adversary simulation engagements. The goal is to enable participants to simulate their adversaries based on the industry which their organization is in, including both known and unknown adversaries. 

Participants will learn to emulate various threat-actors safely in a controlled, enterprise level  environment. Also, the training will help participants learn to simulate unknown adversaries by choosing a wide variety of offensive tradecraft, TTPs and planning attack simulation engagements effectively. 

All machines in the lab environment will be equipped with AV, Web proxy, EDR and other Defense systems. The training management platform will have modules/videos of each attack vector used in the lab environment and step-by-step walkthrough of the attack path. The training is intended to help the attendees to assess the defenses and evaluate the security controls deployed in their organization against motivated adversaries. 

This training will provide participants access to a breach simulation lab range, where they will be able to perform a full red team-attack simulation scenario in guided mode. Each step of the attack chain will be explained, along with the TTPs used, starting from initial access to exfiltration.

Course Outline: 

1. Taking the first step: Understanding the fundamentals. 
2. Introduction to adversary emulation engagements 
   1. Adversary emulation kickoff in your organization 
   2. Collecting actionable cyber threat intelligence from public sources 
   3. Identifying and selecting TTPs to emulate, building an emulation plan 
   4. Performing and executing adversary emulation engagements 
   5. Testing endpoint security controls with adversary emulation techniques. 
   6. Open-source projects for effective emulation of threats. 
   7. Adversary emulation - atomic red team 
   8. Adversary emulation - MITRE Caldera project 
3. Breach and adversary simulation 
   1. Introducing Breach and adversary simulation range lab environment 
   2. Adversary and red team infrastructure 
   3. Breach simulation lab infrastructure guided walkthrough 
   4. Additional modules: Identifying security gaps and exploitation, Active Directory attacks, testing endpoint  security controls, simulating defense evasion techniques and tools (SysWhispers, AMSI bypass, Process Injection, Shellcode loaders, P/D/Invoke, Syscall, Hells gate) 
   5. Using adversary simulation to test and assess Anti-virus systems, security control  validation, simulating data exfiltration, reporting and correlation with SIEM systems. 
   6. Incident response plans and validating them with adversary simulation exercises 
4. Ransomware emulation
5. Launching your first purple teaming exercise
6. Capture the flag competition and badges 

Difficulty Level:

Intermediate to Advanced

Suggested Prerequisites:

Basic understanding of offensive security tradecraft and adversary emulation

What Students Should Bring: 

A Windows/Linux laptop with at least 8 GB of RAM, Access to Internet 

Trainer(s) Bio:

Abhijith B R, also known by the pseudonym Abx, has more than a decade of experience in the  offensive cyber security industry. He is a professional hacker, offensive cyber security specialist,  red team consultant, security researcher, trainer and public speaker. 

Currently, he is building Breachsimrange.io and is involved with multiple organizations as a consulting specialist to help them build offensive security operations programs, improve their current security posture, assess cyber defense systems, and bridge the gap between business leadership and security professionals. 

Abhijith was responsible for building and managing offensive security operations and adversary  simulation for a prominent FinTech company called Envestnet, Inc. In the past, he held the position of Deputy Manager - Cyber Security at Nissan Motor Corporation, and prior to that, he worked as a Senior Security Analyst at EY. 

As the founder of Adversary Village (https://adversaryvillage.org/), Abhijith spearheads a  community initiative focused on adversary simulation, adversary-tactics, purple teaming, threat  actor/ransomware research-emulation, and offensive cyber security. Adversary Village is part of  DEF CON Villages and organizes hacking villages at prominent events such as the DEF CON  Hacking Conference, RSA Conference etc. 

Abx also acts as the Lead of an official DEF CON Group named DC0471. He is actively involved in  leading the Tactical Adversary project (https://tacticaladversary.io/), a personal initiative that  centers around offensive cyber security, adversary attack simulation and red teaming tradecraft. 

Abhijith has spoken at various hacking and cyber security conferences such as, DEF CON hacker convention – Las Vegas, RSA Conference – San Francisco, The Diana Initiative – Las Vegas, DEF CON 28 safemode - DCG Village, Opensource India, Security BSides Las Vegas, BSides San  Francisco, Hack Space Con – Kennedy space center Florida, Nullcon – Goa, c0c0n – Kerala, BSides Delhi, etc.

Registration Terms and Conditions: 

Trainings are refundable before July 8, 2025, minus a non-refundable processing fee of $250.

Trainings are non-refundable after July 8, 2025.

Training tickets may be transferred. Please email us at training@defcon.org for specifics.

If a training does not reach the minimum registration requirement, it may be cancelled. In the event the training you choose is cancelled, you will be provided the option of receiving a full refund or transferring to another training (subject to availability).

Failure to attend the training without prior written notification, will be considered a no-show. No refund will be given.

By purchasing this ticket you agree to abide by the DEF CON Training Code of Conduct and the registration terms and conditions listed above.

Several breaks will be included throughout the day. Please note that food is not included.

All courses come with a certificate of completion, contingent upon attendance at all course sessions.