Future integration projects¶
Red Lantern Simulator currently generates lines that mimic network and BGP monitoring messages. This is already useful for experimentation, demos of control-plane attacks, and workshops, but its additional potential lies in embedding these synthetic events into real-world workflows. By doing so, we can exercise detection logic, alerting systems, and operational playbooks safely, automatically, and repeatedly, without touching production networks.
Simulator in CI/CD pipelines¶
Integrating the simulator into continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipelines allows detection logic to be validated as part of the software development lifecycle. Instead of waiting for a real incident, or manually feeding test data, teams get immediate feedback whenever code changes.
Immediate feedback: CI systems can detect rule misfires or missed alerts the moment a change is made.
Safe testing environment: Synthetic events simulate dangerous or unusual network traffic without risking live systems.
Consistent baseline: Predictable, repeatable test data makes regressions and anomalies easy to spot.
Automated detection testing¶
By automatically feeding simulated events into monitoring and detection stacks, teams can verify that rules trigger correctly under various scenarios. This includes:
Validating new detection rules against known attack patterns.
Testing rule tuning after threat intelligence updates.
Stress-testing correlation engines with bursts of unusual activity.
Regression testing for rules¶
Detection rules are not static. Changes intended to reduce false positives may unintentionally disable important alerts. Regression testing with the simulator ensures that:
New rule versions are compared against historical baseline behaviour.
Silent failures or unexpected triggers are immediately flagged.
Teams retain confidence that updates do not degrade detection coverage.
Detection-as-code workflows¶
The simulator also enables “detection-as-code” practices. By treating detection logic like software: version-controlled, tested, and reviewed—teams gain:
Safe deployment of new or updated rules.
Automatic validation against both synthetic and real events.
Continuous feedback loops to maintain visibility and reduce blind spots.
Next-step integration roadmap¶
Beyond CI/CD, Red Lantern Simulator can feed synthetic events into a range of operational and analytical workflows:
SOAR platforms: Simulated alerts can trigger automated playbooks, allowing teams to test response logic end-to-end.
Dashboards and visualisations: Feeding synthetic traffic into observability tools helps test visual alerting, trend detection, and anomaly dashboards.
Alert correlation engines: By generating controlled bursts of activity, the simulator enables testing of correlation logic and event prioritisation.
Threat-hunting pipelines: Analysts can practise investigation techniques using reproducible, safe data, improving preparedness without real-world risk.
Training and tabletop exercises: Simulated incidents can be injected into exercises for hands-on learning and procedural validation.
These integrations can make the simulator not just a tool for isolated rule testing, but a core component of an automated, proactive, and reproducible security workflow. The long-term vision is a fully instrumented environment where every change, update, or new detection rule is continuously validated against a realistic stream of synthetic network events.