Use cases: active defense that produces signals you can act on.
These use cases show how active defense reduces cyber risk and total incident cost by compressing detection-to-containment timelines, reducing blast radius, and delivering executive-ready reporting.
Active defense domains
Use cases are delivered through a small number of domains. The domains are governed, measurable, and designed to produce explainable signals and controlled response.
Deception + Validation
Engineered signals where legitimate interaction is rare or policy-prohibited. When triggered, the detection is explainable and action-ready.
Threat Hunting (Outcome-led)
Hunts focused on business-relevant objectives: reducing dwell time, validating containment hypotheses, and measuring coverage where it matters.
Pre-Authorized Containment
Tiered response actions with authorization gates, approvals, and guardrails. Containment becomes a governed capability — not a debate during crisis.
What this enables
Each use case follows the same pattern: high-confidence signal → governed containment path → executive outcome.
Ransomware pre-impact containment
Detect early intent signals, contain fast with pre-authorized actions, and prevent scope expansion before encryption or business disruption spreads.
- Deception interaction
- Token misuse
- Suspicious lateral movement validation
- Isolate endpoint (Tier 1)
- Revoke tokens / sessions
- Disable risky paths (time-boxed)
Fewer systems impacted + shorter downtime window → lower total incident cost.
Credential abuse and identity intrusion
Identify misuse of privileged access and high-risk sessions using deterministic and policy-enforced validation—without waiting for malware.
- Privileged use outside change window
- Impossible travel + risk escalation
- New device + sensitive access
- Step-up verification
- Session isolation
- Just-in-time privilege suspension (with rollback)
Reduced investigation effort + clearer audit trail → lower labor and advisory spend.
Lateral movement detection with explainable triggers
Catch adversaries moving internally using identity and deception tripwires designed for near-zero legitimate interaction.
- Decoy share access
- Honeytoken credential validation
- Decoy service account touch
- Contain host segment (Tier 2)
- Force password reset / revoke tokens
- Block specific pathways
Constrained blast radius → incidents stay inside operational tolerance.
Cloud identity and SaaS session control
Reduce cloud-side dwell time by detecting risky identity behaviors and enforcing containment with governance and approvals.
- High-risk OAuth grant
- Admin consent anomaly
- Impossible access pattern validation
- Revoke OAuth grants
- Disable risky app access (time-boxed)
- Quarantine session + require re-auth
Lower third-party exposure + faster containment → reduced regulatory and response risk.
Insider risk with policy-first guardrails
Detect and control high-risk internal actions using validation and governed response—without over-monitoring everyone.
- Sensitive access outside approved workflow
- Data staging validation triggers
- Privileged escalation attempt
- Require approval checkpoint
- Session isolation
- Temporary access suspension (audited)
Predictable governance outcomes → fewer escalations and less disruption.
OT/ICS and critical infrastructure protection
Deploy purpose-built deception across operational technology environments — PLC emulation, HMI decoys, and industrial protocol honeypots that produce high-confidence signals without risking process safety.
- PLC interaction from unauthorized source
- HMI access outside maintenance window
- Industrial protocol scan on deception asset
- Isolate OT network segment (Tier 2)
- Alert OT operations team
- Capture session for forensic analysis
Early detection in OT environments where traditional EDR can't deploy → safety and availability preserved.
Network threat detection with behavioral analysis
Detect command-and-control beacons, DNS tunneling, and lateral movement through passive network analysis -- without deploying agents or disrupting traffic flows.
- C2 beacon periodicity detection
- DNS tunneling and exfiltration patterns
- Lateral movement via anomalous east-west traffic
- Alert SOC with full session context
- Isolate suspect host segment (Tier 1)
- Capture traffic for forensic review
Earlier network-layer detection fills visibility gaps where endpoint agents cannot deploy -- reducing dwell time and investigation scope.
Cloud honeypot deployment for threat intelligence
Deploy ephemeral collectors in Attack Likelihood Zones across cloud environments to attract, observe, and catalog attacker behavior -- generating actionable threat intelligence without exposing real assets.
- Interaction with ephemeral honeypot instance
- Credential harvesting attempt on decoy service
- Enumeration activity in Attack Likelihood Zone
- Capture full session telemetry
- Enrich threat intelligence feed
- Rotate honeypot deployment (automated)
Proactive threat intelligence from controlled exposure -- informs defensive posture without risking production assets.
Hybrid IT/OT environment monitoring
Combine ADE deception assets with NetWatch passive network monitoring across converged IT/OT networks -- detecting threats that cross domain boundaries without impacting operational technology safety.
- IT-side credential used against OT deception asset
- Anomalous protocol crossing IT/OT boundary
- Unauthorized asset discovery in OT network segment
- Alert OT operations + SOC jointly
- Isolate IT/OT boundary segment (Tier 2)
- Preserve session for cross-domain forensic analysis
Unified visibility across IT and OT domains -- reduces blind spots in converged environments while preserving process safety.
M&A / rapid integration risk reduction
Use active defense signals + containment guardrails to reduce uncertainty and contain incidents while environments converge.
- New identity trust misuse
- Legacy credential validation triggers
- Deception touchpoints in transition zones
- Segment/isolate integration zone
- Harden trust paths
- Tiered containment runbooks
Reduced uncertainty + constrained integration risk → fewer expensive surprises.
Want to prioritize your use cases?
We'll map your business requirements to the highest ROI use cases, define containment tiers, and produce outcome-based reporting for executives.