External, authorized testing

Red Cell

Proves the door opens.

It shows, safely and from the outside, what an exposure the survey found actually allows: not only that the door is unlocked, but that it opens. It is the only active tool in the suite, and it acts only on targets that pass its double-key gate.

What it touches in your organization Start an engagement at vantalect.com
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What it does

How it works.

  1. Starts from the survey.

    You never write a target list. The targets come from the survey of your own accounts: Elastic IPs, load balancer and CloudFront hostnames, API Gateway stages. Forgotten assets are found, and ownership is provable.

  2. Needs two keys.

    A target is touched only if it is inside the signed engagement scope and present in the survey snapshot bound to that engagement. Both keys, or no probe fires. Every finding names the snapshot that authorized its target.

  3. Proves, does not exploit.

    Each check is a declarative template that says exactly what is sent and what response proves the finding, so your security team and counsel can read every one.

  4. Logs everything.

    An immutable record of every action against every target: by which operator, under which authorization, and which snapshot.

By design

What it never does.

  • Touches an asset outside the double key.
  • Runs a load-generating, state-changing, or credential-attacking check unless your rules of engagement turn it on in writing and a manual gate is passed.
  • Runs outside the permitted test windows, or past its rate limits and kill switch.
  • Embeds GPL or AGPL scanning code; those tools are studied as designs only, behind a clean-room wall.

Footprint

What it touches in your organization.

Your accounts
None. It holds no credential into your AWS accounts.
Your endpoints
Only targets admitted by both keys, from Vantalect-controlled test infrastructure whose egress addresses are named in the rules of engagement, inside the permitted windows.
Where the data lives
Captured evidence is your data: isolated per client, encrypted at rest, and destroyed at engagement close under Vantalect's data-handling policy. Acumen Defensive holds none of it.
Compare every tool’s footprint

In Vantalect’s engagements

Where it fits.

  • AWS Security, Compliance & Governance Audit: Red Cell is the companion tool. The application-security tool joins when the statement of work includes your IaC and pipeline code; continuous assessment keeps the gate measured afterward, and external testing proves what the audit found.

Put the tools to work

Engagements run through Vantalect.

Acumen Defensive builds the tools and runs no engagements of its own. Vantalect delivers every engagement that uses them, with the scope and price of each published at vantalect.com.

Start an engagement at vantalect.com

Vantalect, LLC is a separate company that licenses and operates these tools.