Modern Day Attack Engineering: How Adversaries Outsmart Traditional Defenses

By Harshad Mengle , N Kishor Narang , Venkat Rajgor , Gagandeep Singh on 01 Mar 2026 @ Nullcon
πŸ”— Link
We need help to complete this entry! Missing: Video
I can help!
#red-teaming #lateral-movement #threat-hunting #evasion
Focus Areas: πŸ›‘οΈ Security Operations & Defense , 🎯 Penetration Testing , πŸ•΅οΈ Threat Intelligence

Abstract

Traditional security controls were designed for a threat landscape that no longer exists. Today’s adversaries operate with industrial-grade attack engineering, blending living-off-the-land techniques, legitimate credential abuse, API exploitation and AI-augmented reconnaissance to evade signature-based detection, bypass perimeter controls and outpace human response cycles. They chain low-risk actions into high-impact breaches, exploit trust relationships over technical vulnerabilities and weaponize enterprise complexity against itself.

This session will cover: How adversaries use legitimate tools, APIs, and admin privileges to stay invisible; Why stolen identities outperform zero-days in modern attack chains; Mapping how adversaries establish persistence, conduct reconnaissance, and trigger payloads.