Offensive Cybersecurity

What is OST?

Outflank Security Tooling (OST) is a curated, continuously-maintained toolbox of offensive capabilities developed by Outflank’s Red Team experts and packaged by Fortra as an enterprise-grade service. OST gives Red Teams, adversary simulation teams and advanced pen testers access to non-public, highly effective tradecraft and tooling designed to operate safely in sensitive engagements and to bypass common defensive controls. OST is maintained and updated by experienced offensive specialists to reflect evolving attacker techniques.

OST Value Proposition  

• Provide small or mid-size red teams with enterprise-grade offensive capabilities without building and maintaining the full toolkit internally.  
• Deliver OPSEC-safe, documented tools that accelerate time-to-impact for campaigns while minimizing accidental exposure.
• Seamlessly interoperate with Cobalt Strike and extend capabilities when run as part of Red Team Bundles or Advanced Red Team Bundles.  

Key Components & Capabilities  

(OST is continuously updated; below are representative modules listed by Fortra.)  

• Payload Generator — Create advanced, unique payloads with OPSEC and anti-forensic techniques to improve success vs AV/EDR while limiting forensic artifacts.  
• Office Intrusion Pack — High-quality offensive macro tooling for MS Office phishing and initial access; implements recent, non-public techniques to increase delivery and execution success.
• Stego Loader — Hide payloads inside images (steganography) to covertly deliver code — a technique used by advanced threat actors.  
• Lateral Pack — OPSEC-aware lateral movement tooling that helps evade EDR and maintain stealth during post-exploitation activities.  
• Outflank C2 (Formerly Stage 1) — A pre-C2 toolkit for safe reconnaissance and minimal footprint actions before committing to a full C2 implant; useful for making informed trade-offs and avoiding premature detection.  
• HiddenDesktop — Covert interactive control of a target desktop (hidden to the user), enabling GUI-level post-exploitation tasks without visible user disruption.  

Interoperability & Bundles

• Cobalt Strike Integration — OST was developed to work tightly with Cobalt Strike: OST modules (BOFs, reflective DLL techniques, etc.) extend Cobalt Strike’s post-exploitation and operational reach for OPSEC-safe workflows. Combining both technologies increases campaign flexibility and realism.
• Red Team Bundles — Fortra offers bundled licensing/packaging (e.g., Red Team Bundle and Advanced Red Team Bundle) combining OST with Cobalt Strike (and optionally Core Impact) to provide a comprehensive offensive stack, with session passing and tunneling between tools for streamlined operations. These bundles simplify procurement and provide discounted, integrated stacks for advanced testing

Benefits for Red Teams & Customers

• Time & Cost Savings: OST centralizes R&D and maintenance so teams don’t have to re-implement or constantly evolve their own toolchains.  
• Higher Efficacy: Access to non-public, research-grade techniques increases the probability of successful, realistic simulations in mature/defended environments.  
• OPSEC-minded Operations: Tools are designed and documented to reduce accidental detection and operational risk during sensitive engagements.  
• Scalable Firepower: Smaller teams can “punch above their weight” by leveraging Outflank’s R&D, enabling advanced kill-chain phases such as EDR evasion and safe lateral movement.  
• Improved Blue Team Readiness: By using OST in adversary simulations, organizations can expose detection gaps and tune defenses against high-end techniques.  

Typical Use Cases

• Full Red Team engagements simulating APT-style multi-stage campaigns.
• Adversary simulation exercises to validate SOC detections, playbooks and incident response processes.
• Advanced penetration testing in highly defended environments where standard tools fail to surface realistic risk.
• Purple Teaming: run OST techniques in coordinated exercises to train Blue Teams and iterate detection rules.  

Operational & Compliance Considerations

• Governance & Scope: OST contains powerful, offensive capabilities. Every engagement must have clear legal authorizations, rules of engagement, and executive sign-off. (Fortra emphasizes OST is provided as a controlled service to trusted offensive teams.)  
• OPSEC & Safety: OST is explicitly designed to be OPSEC-safe — tools include safeguards and documentation to avoid unintended exposure. However, responsible use and strict control (segregated infrastructure, logging, clean-up plans) remain mandatory.
• Training & Expertise: OST is built by and for seasoned red teamers. Organizations should ensure operators have the skills and maturity to run high-impact campaigns safely.  

Services & Delivery Models

• Bundles & Licensing — Fortra offers combined bundles (OST + Cobalt Strike; OST + Cobalt Strike + Core Impact) to provide a fully integrated offensive stack.  
• Professional Services — Typical offerings include tool onboarding, red team engagements, training, and operational hardening/cleanup best practices. (Outflank’s background & integration within Fortra supports both tooling and services.)  

Short Technical Notes (for operators)

• OST includes payload obfuscation and anti-forensics modes to increase success vs EDR/AV.
• Stego and non-standard delivery channels (e.g., images, macros) are part of the toolset to mimic modern APT delivery methods.
• Pre-C2 tooling helps operators perform reconnaissance and low-footprint actions while deciding whether/when to deploy full C2 implants.

 “OST provides a continuously updated toolkit of OPSEC-safe, advanced offensive capabilities. Integrated with Cobalt Strike and Core Impact, OST lets you run realistic adversary simulations that challenge detection and response at the highest level.”

“Comprehensive, enterprise-grade penetration testing to validate and harden your security posture.”

What is Core Impact?

Core Impact is a commercial penetration testing platform designed for professional security teams, internal pentesters, and consultancies. It streamlines and automates many stages of a penetration test — from reconnaissance and exploitation to post-exploitation and reporting — while providing a controlled, auditable environment for repeatable, compliant security assessments. Core Impact helps organizations identify exploitable vulnerabilities, validate remediation effectiveness, and assess real business risk in a safe, governed manner.

Key Features

• Broad Attack Surface Coverage — Support for network (internal/external), endpoint, web application, and client-side attack vectors.
• Automated Exploitation Framework — Large library of validated exploits and modules, with automated workflows to accelerate testing.
• Manual & Guided Testing — Blend automation with manual techniques: operators can tune campaigns, chain exploits, and perform targeted investigations.
• Post-Exploitation & Lateral Movement — Tools for pivoting, credential harvesting, privilege escalation, persistence, and data exfiltration simulation.
• Phishing & Social Engineering Modules — Capabilities to simulate social engineering as part of a broader attack scenario.
• Reporting & Evidence Collection — Customizable, compliance-ready reports with step-by-step evidence, risk scoring, and remediation guidance.
• Integration & Extensibility — APIs and connectors to import findings into ticketing, SIEM, and vulnerability management systems.
• Safe Execution Controls — Rules of engagement enforcement, blast radius controls, and rollback/cleanup procedures to avoid unintended impact.
• Team Collaboration & Multi-User Workflows — Shared projects, role-based access, and audit trails for collaborative red team / pentest operations.

Benefits for the Client

• Realistic Exposure Assessment — Understand which vulnerabilities are actually exploitable and how an attacker could move through your environment.
• Prioritized Remediation — Focus remediation efforts on issues that present real, demonstrable risk to the business.
• Compliance & Audit Readiness — Produce repeatable, evidence-rich reports suitable for auditors and regulators.
• Efficiency & Scalability — Automate routine exploitation tasks to free skilled testers for higher-value manual work.
• Stronger Incident Response — Use findings to harden detection rules, improve playbooks, and raise SOC/IR maturity.
• Operational Safety — Execute high-impact tests with granular controls to protect production systems and data.

Typical Use Cases

• Periodic Penetration Testing — Internal and external pentests to satisfy governance, compliance, or contractual requirements.
• Pre-Production & Release Validation — Validate that infrastructure and applications are resilient before major releases.
• Targeted Red Team Exercises — Emulate multi-stage attacker campaigns to test detection and response.
• Vulnerability Validation — Verify whether a discovered vulnerability is exploitable in context and measure the business impact.
• Purple Teaming — Run attacks in tandem with defenders to tune detections and accelerate capability uplift.
• Supply Chain / Third-Party Assessments — Assess partner and vendor exposure when integrating external services.

Operational & Governance Considerations

• Rules of Engagement (RoE) — Every engagement must define scope, allowed techniques, time windows, rollback plans, and executive approvals.
• Change Control & Communication — Coordinate with IT and change-management to avoid collisions with maintenance or critical business operations.
• Evidence & Liability — Maintain detailed logs and artifacts for post-test analysis and legal protection.
• Operator Skillset — While Core Impact automates many tasks, operators should be experienced to interpret results, adjust techniques, and manage OPSEC.
• Cleanup & Remediation Verification — Ensure tests include cleanup steps and follow-up validation once fixes are applied.

How Core Impact Fits with an Offensive Stack ?

• Complements other offensive tools — Core Impact can operate alongside platforms such as Cobalt Strike and OST; each product has strengths (automation & exploit coverage vs. advanced adversary emulation and stealth tradecraft).
• Flexible deployment — Use Core Impact for large-scale automated validation and exploit chaining, while leveraging other tools for bespoke evasive tradecraft or extended red-team campaigns.
• Integration point — Findings and evidence from Core Impact feed vulnerability management, ticketing systems, and SOC analytics to close the loop between detection and remediation.

Services & Delivery Models (what we offer)

• Tool deployment & onboarding — Install, configure, and harden Core Impact in your lab or controlled environment.
• Penetration testing engagements — From focused app tests to full-scope infrastructure assessments.
• Red / Purple Team exercises — Scenario-based, multi-week campaigns to test detection and response.
• Training & Enablement — Hands-on workshops to upskill internal pentesters and SOC staff on exploitation, detection, and mitigations.
• Managed or Co-sourced Testing — Operate tests on your behalf or alongside your teams for capacity and knowledge transfer.

Short Technical Notes for Operators

• Exploit & Module Management — Keep exploit modules updated and validate them in isolated lab environments before live use.
• OPSEC — Use staging and safe infrastructure to avoid accidental leakage; follow clean-up checklists.
• Evidence Export — Use the reporting templates to extract forensic artefacts for Blue Team tuning and compliance.
• Interoperability — Leverage APIs to feed Core Impact results into vulnerability trackers and SIEM platforms for prioritized remediation.

“Advanced adversary simulation and Red Team operations platform.”

What is Cobalt Strike?

Cobalt Strike by Fortra is a leading platform for adversary simulation and Red Team operations.
It allows security professionals to emulate the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of real-world attackers in order to test an organization’s defenses, validate detection capabilities, and improve incident response.

Unlike vulnerability scanners or penetration testing tools, Cobalt Strike provides full adversary emulation, reproducing stealthy attack chains from initial compromise to lateral movement and persistence.

What is a Red Team?

A Red Team is a group of cybersecurity professionals tasked with simulating real attackers.
Their mission is not only to find vulnerabilities, but to mimic advanced persistent threats (APTs) in order to challenge the Blue Team (defenders) and validate an organization’s detection, response, and resilience capabilities.

With tools like Cobalt Strike, Red Teams can go beyond traditional penetration testing and run realistic campaigns that measure how well people, processes, and technologies perform under attack.

Key Features of Cobalt Strike

• Adversary Simulation – Emulate advanced threats using real-world TTPs aligned with MITRE ATT&CK.
• Command & Control (C2) Framework – Flexible infrastructure to simulate stealthy attacker communications.
• Post-Exploitation Tools – Capabilities for privilege escalation, lateral movement, persistence, and data exfiltration.
• Collaboration for Red Teams – Multiple operators can work together on the same campaign in real time.
• Evasion Techniques – Support for obfuscation and evasion to bypass traditional defenses.
• Reporting and Metrics – Provide detailed results to improve Blue Team readiness.

Benefits for the Client

• Realistic security validation: measure resilience against real-world attacker behaviors, not just known vulnerabilities.
• Improve detection & response: help Blue Teams sharpen their SOC playbooks and SIEM/NDR detections.
• Test people, processes, and technology: evaluate security holistically, beyond technical flaws.
• Continuous improvement: identify gaps and define remediation strategies for long-term resilience.
• Trusted by Red Teams worldwide: recognized as one of the most advanced adversary simulation platforms.

 Why Cobalt Strike is Different ?

• Focus on adversary simulation vs. traditional pentesting.
• Comprehensive TTP coverage aligned with MITRE ATT&CK.
• Team collaboration: designed for multi-operator Red Team exercises.
• Integration with Fortra’s Offensive Security suite: part of a broader ecosystem for ethical adversary testing.