Infection Monkey

Adversary emulation is a cybersecurity defense technique which employs the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of real attackers. An adversary emulation plan is usually completed by an actual human in advanced penetration tests or purple team exercises, which can get quite expensive and require other resources. Infection Monkey does it automatically (after configuration) and for free.

Adversary emulation (or adversary simulation) is one of many cybersecurity defense tactics out there. Defense in depth is recommended – it is meant to be used in conjunction with tactics such as pen tests or vulnerability scans.

As often as you’d like! Once you have it configured to your liking, you can run your real-world adversary emulation plan every day, if you want to. Infection Monkey is free, which means you can test for vulnerabilities without having to budget to have cybersecurity services run an adversary emulator for you.

If malware is the problem you’re defending against, it stands to reason that using safe malware to fight back would give the best gap analysis. By mimicking adversary behaviors, Infection Monkey provides real world attack scenarios that you can run whenever you want to.

Traditional vaccines work like this: inject a small amount of the virus to introduce it to your immune system. Your immune system then attacks it and learns where it doesn’t know what to do. It then adapts to fight against the infection, hopefully building enough antibodies to limit the sickness. Infection Monkey does exactly this in the cyber world, effectively fighting malware with malware.