Getting started

Everything you need to execute your first atomic test.

Contents

• Contents
• Prepare your environment
• Choose a test
• Run your test
  • Install dependencies
  • Run the test
  • Clean your environment
• Next steps

Prepare your environment

Before you start testing, you'll need the following:

• Permission to test. Always ask your environment owner for permission before executing an atomic test.
• A test machine. Set up a machine that mimics the build of your environment. Make sure your security solution is active.

Choose a test

We store all of our atomic test files in the atomics directory of the Atomic Red Team™ repository. To keep things organized, we divide tests into directories named after the MITRE ATT&CK® technique they represent. For example, we keep Process Injection tests in atomic-red-team/atomics/T1055/.

Each technique directory contains the following:

• A YAML test file
• A human-readable Markdown test file
• An optional src directory for source file dependencies
• An optional bin directory for binary dependencies

Browse the atomics directory for an appropriate test. You can also select a test from one of these lists:

• All atomic tests
• Tests for Linux
• Tests for macOS
• Tests for Windows

Run your test

Open the Markdown test definition file and navigate to your test of choice. You can either run the test manually (copy and paste commands) or automated using an Execution Framework. This Getting Started with Atomic Red Team webcast recording will get you up and running with the most popular execution framework called Invoke-AtomicRedTeam.

Install dependencies

Some tests have a "Dependencies" subheading. These tests require additional files to run. To install dependencies, execute the commands in the "Get Prereq Commands" subheading.

Run the test

To run your test, execute the commands in the "Attack Commands" subheading. Note what information, if any, is collected by your security solution.

Clean your environment

Some tests make changes to your environment. To revert these changes, run the commands in the "Cleanup Commands" subheading.

💡 Tip: Be sure to replace any #{<input>} arguments with the inputs specified by the "Inputs" heading of the Markdown test file.

Next steps

• Use the data collected by your security solution to evaluate and improve your detection coverage.
• Automatically run atomic tests using an execution framework like Invoke-Atomic.