Relevant by design
Focus testing on the adversaries, assets and attack paths that present the greatest credible risk to your organisation.
StealthMole TLPT transforms relevant threat intelligence into realistic, organisation-specific attack scenarios. We help financial institutions, critical industries and government organisations assess how effectively their people, processes and technology can prevent, detect and respond to the adversaries most likely to target them.
Intelligence-led. Scenario-driven. Governed for safe and controlled execution.
A conventional penetration test is valuable for identifying technical weaknesses in a defined environment. But critical organisations also need to understand whether their defences can withstand the behaviours of real adversaries operating in their sector.
Threat-Led Penetration Testing begins with intelligence. It considers the organisation's critical functions, sector dynamics, attack history, relevant threat actors, third-party dependencies and governance obligations. These inputs are used to build plausible attack scenarios that test more than a single control: they test how prevention, detection, decision-making and response work together under realistic pressure.
Focus testing on the adversaries, assets and attack paths that present the greatest credible risk to your organisation.
Use targeted threat intelligence to justify scenario selection, attacker behaviours and testing priorities.
Turn observations into concrete improvements across security controls, operational processes and executive governance.
| Dimension | Conventional Penetration Testing | Threat-Led Penetration Testing |
|---|---|---|
| Starting point | Defined assets, vulnerabilities or control requirements | Critical functions and the threats most relevant to the organisation |
| Scenario basis | Known techniques and a predetermined technical scope | Targeted intelligence on sector threats, actors, intent, capability and TTPs |
| Test focus | Technical exposure and exploitability | People, processes and technology supporting critical functions |
| Execution | Time-boxed assessment of selected systems | Controlled, scenario-driven emulation of realistic attacker behaviour |
| Defensive learning | Findings and remediation recommendations | Prevention, detection and response observations, purple teaming and improvement planning |
| Primary outcome | A clearer view of technical weaknesses | Evidence of how the organisation responds to credible, intelligence-led attack scenarios |
Note: TLPT does not replace every form of vulnerability assessment or penetration testing. It complements them by applying threat intelligence and operational context to the testing of critical functions.
StealthMole investigates threat activity across the deep and dark web and other external sources relevant to cybercrime. For a TLPT engagement, our specialists identify the intelligence that is relevant to the organisation, its sector and the agreed scope. This evidence helps determine which adversaries and attack paths deserve attention and why.
Signals associated with illicit marketplaces, forums, infrastructure and criminal communities that may affect the organisation or its sector.
Evidence of exposed accounts, credential abuse and access pathways that could support intrusion scenarios.
Actor activity, victimology, leak-site signals and sector-specific patterns relevant to disruptive and data-extortion threats.
Discussions, tools, tradecraft and intent observed in underground communities and channels, including relevant Telegram activity.
An assessment of the actors most relevant to the target environment, including their motivation, capability, targeting patterns and known tactics, techniques and procedures.
Externally observable information that may influence reconnaissance, social engineering, credential attacks, supply-chain access or targeting decisions.
Every engagement is tailored to the organisation, but the methodology follows a disciplined lifecycle designed to preserve safety, evidence and learning.
We establish the engagement mandate, decision rights and operating boundaries before testing begins. The organisation appoints a small control team, identifies accountable stakeholders and agrees how sensitive information will be handled.
We identify the business services whose disruption or compromise would create the greatest operational impact. The scope connects these critical functions to the people, processes, applications, infrastructure and third parties that support them.
Our threat intelligence specialists develop a target-specific view of the adversaries and external exposures that are most relevant to the organisation and its sector.
Threat intelligence is translated into realistic attack narratives. Each scenario connects a relevant actor profile to a critical function, plausible entry points, attacker objectives and observable defensive opportunities.
The red team emulates the agreed adversary behaviours against the in-scope environment. Testing is conducted under the authority of the control team and within the approved rules of engagement.
Testing concludes with structured collaboration between offensive and defensive stakeholders. The objective is not a pass-or-fail score, but a shared understanding of what happened, what was visible and what should improve.
The following examples illustrate how sector context can shape a TLPT scenario. They are representative examples, not claims about a specific customer or active operation.
Intelligence indicates that financially motivated actors are trading credentials and targeting remote access, service providers and privileged identities in the financial sector. A controlled scenario tests whether an actor could use a plausible access path to approach a critical payment or customer service function while evading or delaying detection.
Sector intelligence shows that ransomware and extortion actors frequently exploit exposed credentials, suppliers and poorly separated environments. A safe scenario examines how an initial IT compromise could threaten systems supporting production or energy operations without performing prohibited actions against safety-critical assets.
Threat intelligence identifies a relevant actor profile interested in public policy, citizen data or government operations. A controlled campaign combines externally available targeting information with approved social-engineering and credential-based techniques to assess whether sensitive services and information can be reached and whether the activity is detected and escalated.
These scenarios are illustrative. Each engagement is designed from the intelligence and critical functions specific to the organisation.
TIBER-EU provides a European framework for threat intelligence-based ethical red teaming. It describes how authorities, tested entities, threat intelligence providers and red team testers can work together to conduct controlled, intelligence-led tests of critical functions.
The EU Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) establishes requirements for threat-led penetration testing for designated financial entities. Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1190 specifies regulatory technical standards covering identification criteria, the use of internal testers, scope, methodology, testing phases, results, closure, remediation and supervisory cooperation.
The TIBER-EU framework was updated in 2025 to align with the DORA TLPT regulatory technical standards, including required process steps, deliverables, terminology and mandatory purple teaming. A TIBER-EU-aligned approach can therefore support relevant financial entities as they prepare for and conduct DORA TLPT activities.
Critical functions, in-scope systems and services, stakeholder roles, rules of engagement, escalation paths and stop conditions.
Relevant actor profiles, external exposure, sector context, intelligence judgments, confidence and limitations.
Prioritised attack narratives linking threat actors and TTPs to critical functions, objectives and observable flags.
Approved attack paths, safety controls, activities performed and evidence collected during controlled execution.
A view of what defenders could prevent, observe, investigate, escalate and contain across the tested scenarios.
Validated telemetry, detection opportunities and shared learning from selected technique replays.
Actions grouped by critical function, risk, ownership and intended security outcome.
A concise account of material resilience themes, business implications and decisions requiring leadership attention.
The value of TLPT depends on realism, but realism does not remove the need for control. Every engagement requires explicit authorisation, defined accountability and safeguards proportionate to the target environment.
Testing is limited to approved objectives, systems, identities and techniques.
A small, authorised team governs the engagement and can escalate, pause or stop activity.
Safety thresholds and emergency contacts are agreed before execution.
Collection, access, storage, transfer, retention and destruction requirements are documented.
Provider, cloud, legal and contractual dependencies are identified before testing affected services.
Prohibited actions and special controls protect safety-critical, life-critical and high-impact services.
Test secrecy is balanced with legal, safety and accountability requirements.
Material scope, scenario and risk decisions are recorded and approved.
The following screens illustrate a representative TLPT workflow inside the StealthMole platform. Each stage translates raw intelligence and domain context into actionable security findings.
Enter the primary domain of the organisation under test. The platform will begin building an intelligence exposure profile immediately.
Talk to StealthMole about your critical functions, sector exposure and resilience objectives. We will help you explore whether a threat-led engagement is appropriate and how relevant intelligence can inform the scope.
No new application account is required. Your enquiry will use StealthMole's existing contact process.