LRQA has earned a place on GBHackers’ “10 Best Purple Teaming Companies in 2025,” recognising its threat-led approach to cyber assurance and close collaboration with client security teams to strengthen defences from day one.
News like this doesn’t land every day. LRQA has been recognised as one of the “10 Best Purple Teaming Companies in 2025” by GBHackers, securing its place among the global leaders in threat-led cyber assurance.
We’re pleased, of course, but the real win is what it says about how we work: threat-led, intelligence-driven Purple Teaming delivered shoulder-to-shoulder with our clients’ defensive teams. The aim is simple, leave security teams measurably stronger from day one – by helping their SOCs tune defences, detect and respond faster using scenarios that mirror how real adversaries operate right now.
What Purple Teaming actually looks like
Traditional testing splits Red and Blue apart: one attacks, the other defends, and the results arrive weeks later. Useful, but slow, and it misses the opportunity to build capability and muscle memory in the moment.
The three flavours of Purple Teaming: Focused, collaborative, strategic
1. TTP coverage assessment – precision in detection uplift
This approach hyper focuses on individual Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs), often guided by the MITRE ATT&CK framework. The goal is to test specific assumptions, verify telemetry and fine-tune thresholds. Each TTP is dissected and worked through collaboratively, making it ideal for improving detection logic where it matters most.
2. Collaborative Red Teaming – Real-time learning and response
Less about individual techniques and more about cohesive adversary emulation, it enables live threat hunting, response rehearsals and in-the-moment knowledge sharing. Think of it as an interactive drill that strengthens muscle memory, sharpens instincts and brings red and blue together in a truly purple engagement.
3. Attack chain discovery – strategic risk exploration
This is where assumptions meet reality. Attack chain discovery involves exploring how full attack paths can unfold within an environment sometimes in surprising ways. It surfaces blind spots, maps out chaining opportunities across systems, and gauges how well the organisation detects and responds as attacks play out. It’s about understanding organisational risk through the lens of plausible, end-to-end adversary behaviour.
What makes LRQA stand out
Being effective at Purple Teaming isn’t just about running clever attacks - it’s about leaving the client tangibly better the very next day. Four things set us apart:
- Proven quality: Extensive CREST accreditations (including SOC provider status) and established assurance of our methods and quality.
- Cross-sector expertise: Engagements across financial services, manufacturing and critical national infrastructure, adapted to each environment’s operational and risk profile.
- Live threat intelligence: Our managed CTI service, drives each realistic exercise with live adversary behaviours and emerging trends.
- Real integration:, We work inside the clients existing tools - Microsoft Sentinel, Microsoft Defender, CrowdStrike and others – delivering tuned KQL analytics, rationalised alerts, SOAR playbook updates, and ATT&CK coverage heatmaps.
Why this matters for continuous assurance
Threats evolve. Controls drift. Teams change. Regular, threat-led Purple Teaming proves – not assumes – that priority attacks will be detected and contained, reducing Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR).
The outcome is more than a report:
- Sharper detections
- Fewer false positives
- Clearer escalation paths
- Evidence your stakeholders can trust
Helping risk-based decisions
Because scenarios are tied directly to current threats and real business processes, findings map cleanly to risk. That gives CISOs and boards confidence to invest where it matters most - and it provides clear, defensible assurance to customers, partners and regulators.
Looking ahead
Making GBHackers’ global top ten list is a milestone. The mission now is the same as ever: evolve our threat-led methodology, deepen the intelligence that drives it and keep working hand-in-hand with client teams to deliver sharper detection, faster response and fewer surprises.
If you’d like to explore how a targeted, intelligence-driven Purple Teaming engagement could strengthen your defences, let’s talk.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly is Purple Teaming?
Purple Teaming is a security testing approach where offensive security experts (the “red” side) and defensive teams (the “blue” side) work together in real time. Instead of a purely adversarial test, the two sides share intelligence during the exercise, so defensive capabilities can be improved there and then.
How is LRQA’s Purple Teaming different from a standard penetration test?
A penetration test is designed to find and report vulnerabilities, but it usually ends when the report is delivered. Our Purple Teaming goes further — we work directly with your security operations team during the test, helping them detect and respond to simulated attacks as they happen. This way, they gain hands-on experience and your defences improve immediately.
What does “threat-led” mean in this context?
Threat-led means we don’t just run generic attack simulations. We start by looking at your industry, your environment, and the types of attackers most likely to target you. We then design realistic scenarios based on those threats, using frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK to map out the tactics and techniques they use in the real world.
Who benefits most from Purple Teaming?
Organisations with a security operations centre (SOC) or an in-house defensive team benefit the most, because they can work alongside our offensive specialists to improve their detection and response capabilities. However, even businesses without a formal SOC can use Purple Teaming to benchmark how prepared they are for different attack types.
Can Purple Teaming help with compliance?
Yes — while it’s not a compliance audit in itself, Purple Teaming provides evidence that you’ve tested your defences against realistic threats. This can help demonstrate due diligence for frameworks like ISO 27001, TISAX, or sector-specific regulations, and it can also support regulatory reporting obligations after incidents.
How often should Purple Teaming be carried out?
It depends on your risk profile and how fast your environment changes. Many organisations run a major Purple Teaming exercise once or twice a year, with smaller targeted scenarios in between to validate specific detections or playbooks. The key is to treat it as an ongoing assurance activity, not a one-off event.