Red, Blue & Purple: Ethical Hacking for Your Organization

6 Interactive Sessions

Short, interactive sessions: watch it work, try it, then build it yourself. You can go deeper at any time in the written chapters.

1. 1

   What ethical hacking is, and why you pay for it

   Ethical hacking is a planned, permitted copy of a real attack. Written permission is what separates it from a crime, and its purpose is to find your weak spots before a real attacker does.

2. 2

   Read a test report: what each kind of tool tells you

   You do not need to run the testers’ tools. You need to read their report: know what a finding from each kind of tool says about your exposure, and which findings to fix first.

3. 3

   Red teaming: would you notice a real attacker?

   A red team copies a real attacker going after one important goal. It tests your people, processes and technology together, and above all whether you notice and respond.

4. 4

   Blue teaming: the defenders being tested

   The blue team is the people and systems that notice attacks and respond to them. A red team can find a way in, but the blue team has to see it and act, and until you test the blue team, how well it works is a guess.

5. 5

   Purple teaming: red and blue fix the gaps together

   In purple teaming, red and blue work together in real time. Red runs a technique, blue checks whether an alert fires, they fix the detection and try again. A one-time “you failed” turns into steady, measured progress.

6. 6

   Run the testing program: order, oversee, act

   A testing program turns security spending into evidence. A leader orders the right mix of tests, oversees them with written permission and clear limits, and makes sure every finding gets fixed and checked.

How this certificate is scored

Your certificate shows how many of your written answers met the rubric below, checked by an AI grader. Anyone who checks your certificate sees it.

• You answer 6 short questions, one for each module, in your own words (at least 40 words each).
• An AI grader checks each answer against what its module asks for: it must answer the question, use the course's practice case specifically, and be correct.
• To pass, at least 5 of the 6 answers must meet that bar. The certificate says the answers were graded by AI.

The rubric

1. Module 1, Ethical Hacking, Explained: Why authorization is everything, and VA vs pentest vs red team vs bug bounty.
2. Module 2, The Hacker's Toolkit: What each tool category reveals — enough to read a findings report and follow the kill chain.
3. Module 3, Red Teaming — Adversary Emulation: How to scope a red team that tests detection and response, not just vulnerabilities.
4. Module 4, Blue Teaming — the Defenders Being Tested: What a mature blue team does and how to measure it (MTTD/MTTR, gap closure).
5. Module 5, Purple Teaming — Where the Value Compounds: The run-detect-tune-repeat loop and the metrics that prove it works.
6. Module 6, Standing Up the Program: A Red/Blue/Purple program plan: commission, govern, and turn findings into risk reduction.

What you walk away with