Breach & Attack Simulation

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Validate network security controls before real attackers put them to the test with breach and attack simulation solutions from Hummingbird Networks. Breach and Attack Simulation, commonly abbreviated BAS, helps security and network teams safely simulate attack techniques, malicious traffic, exploits, malware activity, and other threats to evaluate how security infrastructure responds.

BAS provides organizations with a repeatable way to test whether firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, network security controls, security operations processes, and other defensive technologies perform as expected. Instead of relying exclusively on configuration reviews or waiting for a real security incident, organizations can proactively exercise their defenses and identify potential weaknesses.

Hummingbird Networks offers Fortinet FortiTester solutions for breach and attack simulation, security validation, network performance testing, traffic generation, and automated testing across business, enterprise, service provider, laboratory, and security operations environments.

Breach & Attack Simulation Solutions

Breach and attack simulation is a cybersecurity testing approach that reproduces attacker techniques and malicious network activity in a controlled environment.

Depending on the BAS platform and test scenario, organizations can evaluate security controls against:

  • Known vulnerabilities and exploits
  • MITRE ATT&CK techniques
  • Malware
  • Ransomware
  • Intrusion attempts
  • Web attacks
  • IoT attacks
  • Fuzzing attacks
  • DDoS traffic
  • Custom network traffic
  • Recorded packet captures

Testing can help security teams determine whether defensive controls detect, block, log, or otherwise respond to simulated malicious activity as intended.

What Is Breach & Attack Simulation?

Breach and attack simulation is the controlled execution of cyberattack techniques and malicious traffic to evaluate an organization's security defenses.

The objective is not simply to determine whether a security product is enabled. BAS can help determine whether security controls actually respond correctly when exposed to representative attack activity.

A simulation can test questions such as:

  • Does the firewall block the attack?
  • Does the intrusion prevention system recognize the exploit?
  • Is malicious traffic detected?
  • Does the security platform generate the expected alert?
  • Can security operations personnel see the activity?
  • Do policies continue working after configuration changes?
  • Does security inspection remain effective under network load?

This makes BAS useful for both security validation and ongoing security operations.

Continuous Security Validation

Cybersecurity infrastructure changes continuously. Firewall policies are modified, software is updated, new vulnerabilities are discovered, applications change, security subscriptions receive new intelligence, and network architectures evolve.

A security control that performed correctly during its initial deployment may not necessarily continue behaving exactly as expected after months or years of changes.

Continuous security validation uses recurring testing to provide ongoing evidence about how defensive controls respond to defined threats and attack scenarios.

Organizations can use repeated BAS testing to evaluate security controls after:

  • Firewall configuration changes
  • IPS policy changes
  • Security software updates
  • Firmware upgrades
  • Network architecture changes
  • New application deployments
  • Security policy changes
  • Infrastructure migrations
  • New threat intelligence updates

Security Control Validation

Security control validation evaluates whether deployed cybersecurity technologies perform the functions expected of them.

Organizations invest in firewalls, intrusion prevention, malware protection, web security, endpoint security, monitoring, and other defensive technologies. BAS can provide another layer of verification by exposing these controls to simulated malicious activity.

Validation can help security teams identify:

  • Misconfigured security policies
  • Detection gaps
  • Blocking failures
  • Unexpected traffic behavior
  • Visibility gaps
  • Logging problems
  • Changes in security effectiveness

The objective is to identify weaknesses during controlled testing rather than discovering them for the first time during an actual attack.

MITRE ATT&CK Simulation

MITRE ATT&CK provides a widely used knowledge base for describing adversary tactics and techniques observed in cyberattacks.

Breach and attack simulation platforms can use ATT&CK-aligned testing to evaluate how security controls respond to specific attacker behaviors.

This can help security teams organize testing around recognizable attack techniques rather than relying exclusively on individual malware samples or vulnerabilities.

ATT&CK-based simulation can also provide a common framework for discussing defensive coverage across security, network, and operations teams.

CVE-Based Security Testing

Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures, or CVEs, provide standardized identifiers for publicly disclosed cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

CVE-based testing can generate traffic associated with known vulnerabilities to determine whether compatible security controls recognize and respond to the simulated exploit activity.

This can be particularly useful when evaluating intrusion prevention systems and other network security technologies designed to identify exploitation attempts.

Organizations should conduct security testing only within systems and environments they own or are authorized to test.

Intrusion Prevention System Testing

Intrusion Prevention Systems, commonly called IPS, inspect network traffic for activity associated with exploits, vulnerabilities, attacks, and other threats.

BAS and security testing equipment can generate representative malicious traffic to evaluate whether an IPS identifies and responds to attack activity as expected.

Testing can help organizations validate IPS behavior after:

  • Initial deployment
  • Signature updates
  • Policy modifications
  • Firewall upgrades
  • Network changes
  • Security architecture changes

IPS validation can be particularly useful when advanced inspection is a critical component of the organization's network security architecture.

Firewall Security Testing

Firewalls are frequently positioned as major enforcement points between trusted and untrusted networks. Testing can help determine whether firewall and next-generation security policies respond appropriately to simulated malicious traffic.

Depending on the environment and testing platform, organizations can evaluate security functions such as:

  • Firewall policy enforcement
  • Intrusion prevention
  • Application inspection
  • Malware protection
  • Web security
  • Encrypted traffic inspection
  • Network segmentation

Organizations evaluating or maintaining network security infrastructure can use controlled testing to complement configuration reviews and monitoring.

Malware Simulation

Malware simulation can help organizations evaluate whether security infrastructure detects or blocks representative malicious activity.

Controlled malware testing can provide useful information about defensive coverage without requiring organizations to wait for a real malware incident.

Depending on the BAS platform, testing can evaluate network security controls against different malware families, delivery methods, or associated network behavior.

Malware simulation should be performed in controlled, authorized environments using appropriate security procedures.

Ransomware Simulation

Ransomware remains an important threat scenario for organizations evaluating cybersecurity defenses.

BAS platforms can include ransomware-related simulations designed to test how security controls respond to representative malicious activity associated with ransomware attacks.

Ransomware simulation can help security teams evaluate whether preventive and detection technologies respond as expected and whether relevant security events become visible to operations personnel.

Simulation is not a substitute for backup, endpoint protection, segmentation, identity security, patching, incident response, or other ransomware defenses. Instead, it can help validate parts of the broader security architecture.

Web Attack Simulation

Web applications and services can be exposed to numerous attack techniques. BAS platforms can generate web attack traffic to evaluate compatible network and application security controls.

Testing can help organizations determine whether defensive technologies detect or block representative web-based threats and whether the resulting activity is appropriately logged and reported.

IoT Attack Simulation

Internet of Things devices can expand the network attack surface because organizations may operate cameras, sensors, access control systems, industrial devices, building systems, and other connected equipment alongside traditional computers and servers.

IoT attack simulation can help evaluate how security controls respond to representative malicious activity targeting connected devices and IoT environments.

This can be especially relevant for organizations using network segmentation to isolate IoT equipment from sensitive systems.

Fuzzing Testing

Fuzz testing sends unexpected, malformed, invalid, or unusual inputs to systems in an effort to identify weaknesses or unexpected behavior.

Within a network security testing environment, fuzzing can help evaluate how devices and security controls respond to abnormal traffic and protocol conditions.

Fuzz testing should be conducted carefully because intentionally malformed traffic can affect the systems being tested.

DDoS Traffic Generation & Testing

Distributed Denial of Service attacks attempt to overwhelm network resources, services, or applications with traffic or requests.

Security testing platforms capable of traffic generation can help authorized organizations evaluate how network infrastructure and defensive systems respond to high-volume or attack-oriented traffic scenarios.

DDoS-related testing can help evaluate:

  • Security appliance behavior
  • Network capacity
  • Traffic handling
  • Detection and alerting
  • Resilience under load

Testing should be isolated and carefully controlled so generated traffic does not affect unauthorized networks or production systems.

PCAP Replay

Packet capture files, commonly known as PCAP files, contain recorded network traffic.

PCAP replay allows compatible testing platforms to reproduce captured traffic in a controlled testing environment.

This can be useful when security teams want to recreate particular network conditions, attack traffic, application behavior, or previously observed events.

Replay testing can improve repeatability because the same traffic sample can be used across multiple tests or security configurations.

Network Traffic Generation

Breach and attack simulation equipment can also generate legitimate network traffic to evaluate infrastructure under more realistic conditions.

Security controls should not only identify malicious traffic. They must also continue processing normal business traffic while security inspection is active.

Traffic generation can help organizations test combinations of:

  • Normal application traffic
  • High network utilization
  • Security inspection
  • Simulated attacks
  • Encrypted traffic
  • VPN traffic

This can provide a more complete view of how network security infrastructure behaves under realistic load.

Network Performance & Security Testing

Security effectiveness and network performance are closely related. A security appliance must inspect traffic without creating unacceptable network bottlenecks or latency.

Testing equipment can help organizations evaluate both security behavior and network performance under controlled conditions.

Performance testing can be relevant when evaluating:

  • Next-generation firewalls
  • Intrusion prevention systems
  • VPN gateways
  • Network security appliances
  • High-speed network infrastructure
  • Data center security

HTTP & HTTPS Performance Testing

Web traffic represents a significant portion of modern business network activity. Security testing platforms can generate HTTP and HTTPS traffic to evaluate network and security infrastructure.

HTTPS testing is particularly relevant because encrypted traffic requires additional processing when security devices perform TLS inspection.

Organizations evaluating firewall capacity can use controlled performance testing to better understand how security inspection affects throughput and responsiveness.

SSL VPN & IPsec Testing

VPN technologies are widely used for remote access and site-to-site connectivity.

Security and performance testing platforms can generate SSL VPN and IPsec-related workloads to help evaluate VPN infrastructure under controlled conditions.

Testing can be useful when evaluating:

  • VPN throughput
  • Encrypted traffic processing
  • Remote-access capacity
  • Site-to-site connectivity
  • Security appliance performance

RFC 2544 Network Testing

RFC 2544 defines benchmarking methodologies commonly used to evaluate network device performance.

Compatible network testing equipment can use standardized methodologies to measure aspects of network performance under controlled test conditions.

This can be useful when validating network infrastructure before production deployment or comparing performance under different configurations.

Testing Security Performance Under Load

A security appliance may perform differently when advanced inspection is enabled and the network is carrying significant traffic.

Testing security effectiveness while generating realistic network loads can help organizations evaluate whether security controls continue functioning as expected during demanding conditions.

This is particularly relevant for high-bandwidth environments where firewalls and other security appliances must inspect substantial amounts of traffic.

Security Testing Automation

Repeatability is one of the major advantages of automated security validation.

Instead of relying exclusively on manually executed tests, organizations can automate recurring simulations to evaluate security controls on a consistent basis.

Automation can support:

  • Scheduled security validation
  • Regression testing
  • Post-change validation
  • Repeatable attack simulations
  • Automated reporting
  • Security testing workflows

API capabilities can also allow compatible BAS platforms to integrate testing into broader security, laboratory, and automation workflows.

Security Regression Testing

Regression testing verifies that previously functioning security controls continue working after infrastructure changes.

For example, a security team might establish a group of attack simulations that its firewall successfully detects and blocks. After upgrading firewall software or changing security policies, the same tests can be repeated to confirm that expected protection remains in place.

This approach can make security validation more systematic and measurable.

Validate Security Changes Before Production

Organizations frequently make changes to firewalls, IPS policies, security subscriptions, network segmentation, software, and other infrastructure.

Testing changes in a controlled environment can help identify unexpected security or performance behavior before those changes are introduced into critical production networks.

BAS and performance testing can therefore be useful in:

  • Security laboratories
  • Pre-production environments
  • Proof-of-concept testing
  • Network staging environments
  • Equipment evaluations

BAS for Security Operations Teams

Security Operations Center, or SOC, teams monitor security alerts and investigate potential threats across an organization.

BAS can help security operations teams determine whether simulated malicious activity produces the expected security events and whether analysts have sufficient visibility to recognize and investigate those events.

This can help evaluate not only technology, but also portions of the detection and response workflow surrounding that technology.

BAS for Network Security Teams

Network security teams can use attack simulation and performance testing to validate firewalls, intrusion prevention, VPN infrastructure, segmentation policies, and other network controls.

Testing can be particularly valuable during major security upgrades because teams can compare behavior before and after configuration or equipment changes.

BAS for Enterprise Security Labs

Enterprise security laboratories provide controlled environments for testing security technologies before production deployment.

BAS equipment can help labs generate repeatable attack and application traffic while evaluating security devices under defined conditions.

Testing environments can be used to evaluate:

  • New firewall platforms
  • Security policy changes
  • IPS effectiveness
  • Software and firmware updates
  • Network architecture changes
  • Security performance
  • Threat detection

BAS for Managed Service Providers

Managed service providers can operate security infrastructure for multiple customers with different network architectures and security requirements.

Repeatable security validation and network performance testing can help service providers evaluate infrastructure, validate changes, reproduce issues, and test security technologies within controlled environments.

Breach & Attack Simulation vs. Penetration Testing

Breach and attack simulation and penetration testing can both help organizations evaluate security, but they serve different purposes.

BAS emphasizes repeatable and often automated simulations that exercise security controls against defined attack techniques.

Penetration testing typically involves authorized security professionals actively attempting to discover and exploit weaknesses within an agreed scope.

BAS can be repeated frequently to validate defensive controls, while penetration testing can provide deeper human-driven exploration of potential attack paths.

Organizations may use both approaches as complementary components of a broader security testing program.

Breach & Attack Simulation vs. Vulnerability Scanning

Vulnerability scanning identifies systems, software, or configurations that may contain known security weaknesses.

BAS focuses on exercising security defenses using simulated attack activity.

A vulnerability scanner might identify that a system appears vulnerable to a particular CVE, while BAS can help evaluate whether network security controls detect or block representative exploit traffic associated with that vulnerability.

The two technologies address different questions and can complement one another.

BAS vs. Red Teaming

Red team exercises typically involve human security professionals emulating adversaries across a broader attack scenario.

BAS provides repeatable automated or semi-automated simulations designed to test specific security controls and attack techniques.

Red teaming can explore complex attack paths and human responses, while BAS can provide frequent validation of defined security controls.

Purple Team Security Validation

Purple team exercises bring offensive and defensive security perspectives together to improve detection and response capabilities.

BAS can support this process by providing repeatable attack simulations that defensive teams can observe, analyze, and use to improve security controls.

The same simulation can be repeated after changes are made, allowing teams to determine whether detection or prevention has improved.

How to Choose a Breach & Attack Simulation Solution

The right BAS platform depends on what the organization needs to validate and how testing will be performed.

Attack Simulation Coverage

Review the attack techniques and threat scenarios the platform can generate, including MITRE ATT&CK simulations, CVE-based attacks, malware, ransomware, web attacks, IoT attacks, fuzzing, or other relevant scenarios.

Network Performance Testing

Determine whether the platform also needs to generate legitimate network traffic and measure performance in addition to simulating attacks.

Traffic Capacity

Higher-speed networks require testing equipment capable of generating and processing traffic at the required network rates.

Network Interfaces

Verify interface speeds, media types, port quantities, and optical connectivity requirements.

Automation

Organizations planning continuous validation should evaluate API capabilities, scheduling, repeatable test configurations, and reporting.

Reporting

Testing results should provide enough information for security and network teams to understand whether controls behaved as expected and where additional investigation may be required.

Deployment Environment

Consider whether testing will occur in a dedicated laboratory, staging environment, production network, service provider environment, or another authorized testing architecture.

Fortinet FortiTester

Fortinet FortiTester combines network performance testing with breach and attack simulation capabilities for organizations that need to validate network security and infrastructure resilience.

FortiTester can be used by enterprise security teams, network teams, managed service providers, and testing laboratories to evaluate both security controls and network performance.

Depending on the FortiTester model and configuration, capabilities can include:

  • MITRE ATT&CK simulation testing
  • CVE-based IPS testing
  • Fuzzing
  • Web and IoT attack simulation
  • Malware testing
  • Ransomware-related testing
  • DDoS traffic generation
  • PCAP replay
  • HTTP and HTTPS traffic generation
  • UDP throughput testing
  • RFC 2544 testing
  • SSL VPN and IPsec testing
  • Enterprise traffic generation
  • API-based testing and automation

This combination can help organizations evaluate whether security infrastructure provides the intended protection while maintaining required network performance.

FortiTester for Firewall Validation

FortiTester can be used to evaluate compatible firewall and network security environments using controlled traffic and attack simulations.

This can be useful when testing new firewall deployments, security policy changes, software upgrades, IPS configurations, threat protection, and performance under load.

Organizations can use repeatable testing to compare security behavior across configurations rather than relying solely on appliance specifications.

FortiTester for Network Performance Testing

In addition to BAS, FortiTester supports network traffic generation and performance testing.

This allows network and security teams to evaluate security appliances while subjecting the infrastructure to controlled traffic workloads.

The combination is particularly relevant when organizations need to determine whether security inspection can remain effective without creating unacceptable performance limitations.

Choosing a FortiTester Model

FortiTester appliances are available for different testing capacities and network environments.

When selecting a model, consider:

  • Required test throughput
  • Interface speeds
  • Port quantities
  • Optical or copper connectivity
  • Types of simulations required
  • Network performance testing requirements
  • Automation requirements
  • Expected testing scale

A testing appliance should have sufficient interface and traffic-generation capacity for the network security infrastructure being evaluated.

Build a Security Validation Environment

A breach and attack simulation platform is one component of a complete security validation environment.

Depending on the testing architecture, organizations may also require:

  • Firewalls and security appliances
  • Managed network switches
  • Servers and test systems
  • Network monitoring
  • Security analytics
  • Optical transceivers
  • Ethernet and fiber cabling
  • Racks and infrastructure
  • Isolated test networks

Organizations conducting BAS should define appropriate authorization, scope, isolation, and safety procedures before generating attack or high-volume traffic.

Why Buy Breach & Attack Simulation Solutions from Hummingbird Networks?

Breach and attack simulation equipment can serve multiple technical roles, from validating security controls to generating high-performance network traffic. Selecting the appropriate solution requires understanding both the security scenarios being tested and the network infrastructure involved.

Hummingbird Networks helps businesses, enterprises, service providers, and IT teams source security validation and network testing equipment for controlled cybersecurity testing environments.

Customers can turn to our team for:

  • Breach and attack simulation equipment
  • Fortinet FortiTester solutions
  • Network security testing equipment
  • Network performance testing
  • Security validation infrastructure
  • Compatible networking equipment
  • Product selection assistance

Frequently Asked Questions About Breach & Attack Simulation

What does BAS mean in cybersecurity?

BAS stands for Breach and Attack Simulation. It refers to technologies and processes that simulate cyberattack techniques in controlled environments to evaluate how security defenses respond.

What does breach and attack simulation test?

Depending on the platform, BAS can test firewalls, intrusion prevention, malware defenses, network segmentation, monitoring, alerting, security operations workflows, and other defensive controls using simulated attack activity.

Why use breach and attack simulation?

BAS can help organizations verify that security controls continue working as expected, identify potential defensive gaps, validate configuration changes, and repeatedly test security infrastructure against defined attack scenarios.

Is breach and attack simulation the same as penetration testing?

No. BAS generally emphasizes repeatable and automated simulation of defined attack techniques, while penetration testing typically involves authorized security professionals actively discovering and attempting to exploit weaknesses within a defined scope.

Is BAS the same as vulnerability scanning?

No. Vulnerability scanners primarily identify potential weaknesses. BAS exercises security controls using simulated attack activity to determine how defensive technologies respond.

Does BAS use the MITRE ATT&CK framework?

Some BAS platforms support simulations aligned with MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques. This can help organizations organize security validation around documented adversary behaviors.

Can BAS test an intrusion prevention system?

Yes. Compatible BAS platforms can generate attack traffic designed to evaluate whether intrusion prevention systems detect or block representative exploits and malicious activity.

Can BAS test firewalls?

Yes. Attack simulation can help evaluate firewall policies and advanced security services by exposing them to controlled attack traffic and observing whether the expected security actions occur.

Can breach and attack simulation test ransomware defenses?

Some BAS platforms provide simulations related to ransomware and other malware threats. These simulations can help evaluate parts of the security architecture without waiting for an actual ransomware incident.

What is CVE-based security testing?

CVE-based testing generates representative activity associated with known vulnerabilities identified through the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures system. It can help evaluate whether security controls detect or block relevant exploit traffic.

What is PCAP replay?

PCAP replay reproduces network traffic previously recorded in packet capture files. It can be useful for recreating attack traffic, application behavior, or network conditions during controlled testing.

Can BAS test network performance?

Some platforms combine breach and attack simulation with traffic generation and performance testing. This allows organizations to evaluate security effectiveness while network infrastructure is operating under controlled traffic loads.

What is continuous security validation?

Continuous security validation repeatedly tests security controls rather than validating them only during initial deployment. Recurring testing can help identify changes in defensive behavior after configuration, software, infrastructure, or threat updates.

What is Fortinet FortiTester?

Fortinet FortiTester is a network testing and security validation platform that combines network performance testing, traffic generation, and breach and attack simulation capabilities.

Can FortiTester simulate MITRE ATT&CK techniques?

FortiTester supports MITRE ATT&CK simulation testing as part of its breach and attack simulation capabilities.

Can FortiTester test IPS protection?

Yes. FortiTester supports CVE-based IPS testing that can be used to evaluate intrusion prevention behavior against representative vulnerability exploitation traffic.

Does FortiTester support malware and ransomware testing?

FortiTester supports malware-related attack simulation, including FortiGuard malware testing capabilities with ransomware scenarios depending on the applicable solution and content.

Does FortiTester generate DDoS traffic?

FortiTester supports DDoS traffic generation for controlled testing. High-volume traffic testing should only be performed within properly authorized and isolated environments.

Can FortiTester automate security tests?

FortiTester provides API capabilities that can support automated testing, simulation, and reporting workflows.

Who uses breach and attack simulation equipment?

BAS can be used by enterprise security teams, network security teams, security operations centers, managed service providers, security laboratories, testing teams, and organizations that need repeatable validation of cybersecurity controls.

Can Hummingbird Networks help me choose a BAS solution?

Yes. Hummingbird Networks can help organizations evaluate breach and attack simulation and network testing equipment based on required test scenarios, throughput, network interfaces, security controls, automation, and testing environment.

Shop Breach & Attack Simulation Solutions

Continuously validate cybersecurity defenses with breach and attack simulation and network testing solutions designed to evaluate security controls against controlled attack scenarios.

Whether you need to test firewall and IPS effectiveness, simulate MITRE ATT&CK techniques, validate malware defenses, generate network traffic, replay packet captures, or evaluate security performance under load, Hummingbird Networks can help you identify Fortinet FortiTester solutions for your security validation environment.