Skip to content

Comparison · Family 1

Breach and Attack Simulation: validating your defences continuously

By Updated on

Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) continuously replays known attack techniques against your information system to check that your security controls block and detect them. Compared with Pentera, which looks for exploitable attack paths, it answers a different question: are my defences doing what I paid for them to do? It is the alternative to choose if your priority is the effectiveness of your controls rather than finding new weaknesses.

See Beareye’s automated Red Team
  • Dated, sourced comparison
  • Verifiable facts
  • No disparagement

What is Breach and Attack Simulation for?

A BAS tool deploys agents or scenarios that imitate an attacker’s behaviour: downloading a malicious file, moving laterally, exfiltrating data. It then observes what your defences blocked, what they only saw, and what went unnoticed. Scenarios are usually mapped to the tactics and techniques of MITRE ATT&CK.

Several vendors in this family now describe their offering as “adversarial exposure validation”, which extends BAS to the prioritisation of exposures. When simulation becomes permanent and extends to the external surface, the term CART is also used.

When should you choose BAS rather than Pentera?

  • You run many controls

    Firewall, EDR, email gateway, SIEM: BAS checks that each one really blocks or detects the techniques targeted, and that settings hold after an update.

  • Your SOC must prove its detection

    Replayed scenarios show which techniques trigger an alert and which pass silently, guiding the writing of new detection rules.

  • You want a measure over time

    Replaying the same scenarios every week gives a comparable trend, more useful to management than a one-off finding.

What are the limits of BAS?

BAS tests what you ask it to test. It checks known scenarios and how your controls react, but on its own it does not discover a forgotten asset on the internet or a chain of weaknesses specific to your environment. It also takes team time to deploy agents, choose scenarios and handle the gaps. It complements a human penetration test; it does not replace it.

Which vendors represent the BAS family?

What each vendor states on its public pages, as of . Representative, non-exhaustive list, in no particular order.

Representative Breach and Attack Simulation vendors and what they state
Vendor What the vendor states Published location
AttackIQ Presents itself as a pioneer of the BAS category and an adversarial exposure validation platform, aligned with MITRE ATT&CK Los Altos, California (United States)
Cymulate Exposure validation and continuous threat and attack simulation Not stated on the page consulted
Picus Security Exposure validation and security control validation platform, with a BAS module Not stated on the page consulted
SafeBreach CTEM platform with exposure validation, and presents itself as a pioneer of BAS Not stated on the page consulted
Beareye (BEAROPS) Automated Red Team (BAS and CART) that reconstructs attack paths and replays them after remediation, within a platform that also covers the attack surface, threat intelligence and supplier risk Vannes (France), hosting in France

Where does BEAROPS sit in this family?

Beareye’s automated Red Team belongs to this family, with a different logic: rather than replaying isolated scenarios, it chains weaknesses into attack paths, from the entry point to the critical asset, and replays the attack after each fix to prove the path is closed. It runs non-destructively, on a scope you define. If your need is limited to fine-grained testing of detection controls endpoint by endpoint, a specialist BAS tool may be a better fit.

Sources and revision date

Comparison up to date as of . Information about other vendors comes from their public pages. Report any inaccuracy to us and we will correct it and update the date.

  1. AttackIQ, “Company”: BAS category, Adversarial Exposure Validation, headquarters
  2. Cymulate, home page: Exposure Validation and Threat Validation
  3. Picus Security, home page: exposure validation and Picus BAS
  4. SafeBreach, home page: CTEM platform and Exposure Validation Platform
  5. MITRE ATT&CK, The MITRE Corporation

Sources consulted on . Report an error: contact+site@bearops.fr

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between BAS and automated penetration testing?

BAS replays known scenarios to check that your controls stop them. Automated penetration testing looks for an exploitable path in your network itself, chaining real attack techniques. The first measures your defences; the second measures what an attacker could reach.

Is BAS risky in production?

BAS scenarios are designed to imitate an attacker without causing damage, and the scope is set in advance. The risk is managed through scoping: choice of scenarios, target machines and execution times.

Validate your defences on your own scope

See which attack paths Beareye’s automated Red Team reconstructs in your environment, and how it proves they are closed after remediation.

Evaluate Beareye