Reducing Dwell Time through Continuous Simulation

In cybersecurity, time is everything. The longer an attacker remains undetected inside your network—known as dwell time—the more damage they can cause. They may steal sensitive data, deploy ransomware, create backdoors, or escalate privileges.

In 2025, despite advances in red team cybersecurity, industry research shows that the average global dwell time still ranges from 10 to 20 days for targeted attacks. That’s more than enough time for a sophisticated adversary to achieve their objectives.

This is where Aquila I’s Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) platform changes the game. By running continuous simulations—whether daily, weekly, or even hourly—Aquila I reduces dwell time from weeks to hours, or even minutes.

In this blog, we’ll explore:

• Why dwell time is a critical security metric

• How BAS shortens dwell time through automation

• Real-world industry case studies

• How to integrate continuous simulation into SOC workflows

• Key metrics for measuring success

• Future trends in dwell time reduction
  

Why Dwell Time Matters

More Time = More Damage

An attacker with 15 days of undetected access can:

• Exfiltrate sensitive customer or patient data

• Deploy ransomware to mission-critical systems

• Establish persistence for future attacks
  

Financial Impact

Studies show that each additional day of dwell time can raise breach costs by 3–5%, due to extended investigation, containment, and recovery.

Regulatory Risk

In regulated industries like BFSI and healthcare, longer dwell times increase the risk of compliance violations—especially if breaches are detected by external parties first.

How Aquila I’s BAS Reduces Dwell Time

Breach and attack simulation doesn’t guess what attackers might do—it replicates actual adversary behavior using MITRE ATT&CK–aligned tactics to test whether your controls detect and stop them.

1. Frequent, Automated Testing

Aquila I’s BAS runs safe, controlled simulations continuously across endpoints, email gateways, and cloud workloads. This ensures any gap in detection is identified immediately.

Example: Daily phishing simulations through a secure email gateway ensure malicious payloads can’t go unnoticed for weeks.

2. Endpoint Verification

Attackers often hide in compromised devices. Aquila I verifies that EDR tools are active, updated, and alerting properly.

3. SOC Alert Validation

Simulations feed alerts into your SIEM/SOAR systems, validating detection rules and analyst workflows. If an alert is missed, you know instantly—not weeks later.

4. Immediate Remediation Retesting

Once a fix is deployed, Aquila I re-runs the simulation automatically, confirming the issue is resolved before attackers can exploit it again.

Real-World Case Studies

BFSI – Email Security Gap Closure A major retail bank uses Aquila I to run weekly email security checks. BAS simulations detected that a specific attachment type bypassed the email filter. The SOC updated rules within the same day, cutting potential dwell time from 14 days to under 24 hours.

Healthcare – Ransomware Containment A hospital network simulated ransomware lateral movement. Initial tests showed detection took 12 days. After refining detection rules and integrating BAS alerts into their SIEM, they reduced that window to under 6 hours.

Manufacturing – Privilege Escalation Detection A manufacturing firm simulated Active Directory privilege escalation attacks. BAS revealed certain MITRE techniques weren’t triggering alerts. Adjustments dropped detection time from 9 days to less than 2 hours.

Integrating Continuous Simulation into SOC Workflows

1. Schedule Regular BAS Runs – Daily for high-risk areas, weekly for full simulations.

2. Feed Alerts into SIEM/SOAR – Treat BAS alerts like real incidents (link to: /security-operations-integration).

3. Pair with Red Teaming – Combine automated BAS with manual red team testing for complete coverage (link to: /red-teaming-vs-bas).

4. Train Analysts on BAS Data – Use simulations to improve SOC playbooks and incident handling.
   

Metrics for Measuring Dwell Time Reduction

• Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) – Time from attack start to detection.

• Mean Time to Respond (MTTR) – Time from detection to first response.

• Simulation Pass Rate – % of BAS tests successfully blocked.

• False Negative Rate – % of attacks missed entirely.
  

Future Trends – BAS and AI in Dwell Time Reduction

• Predictive BAS – AI simulating likely attack chains before they occur.

• Autonomous Remediation – BAS-triggered auto-fixes for high-risk vulnerabilities.

• Micro Secure Vision Dashboards – Real-time mapping of attacker paths and detection points.

Conclusion

Reducing dwell time is one of the fastest ways to lower breach impact and cost. In 2025, Aquila I’s Breach and Attack Simulation platform enables organizations to identify and fix detection blind spots in near real time.

Whether it’s testing a secure email gateway, running endpoint verification, or validating alerts against MITRE ATT&CK, continuous simulation ensures attackers have as little time as possible in your environment.

If your dwell time is measured in days, you’re giving adversaries an advantage. Book a Live BAS Demo with Aquila I and see how we can cut that window down to hours—or less.