Forge Workshop
Build detections and automation that actually run, then break them.
What is in it
For detection engineer, automation engineer — ship reliable detections and playbooks, and recover when a connector fails.
- Executable SOAR playbooks: draft, run, fail, repair, rerun
- Deterministic integration faults and idempotent retries
- A run debugger showing resolved inputs, outputs, errors and retries
- Detection rules tested against positive and benign fixtures
What it is not
- Playbooks run against the simulated estate, not your production tools
- Not a commercial SOAR product you would deploy
Forge Workshop against the field
15 capabilities that matter for this purchase, next to the platforms a buyer shortlists in this lane: Immersive, RangeForce, TryHackMe.
- Playbooks genuinely execute against the estate — draft, run, fail on a staged connector fault, repair, rerun.
- A run debugger shows resolved inputs, outputs, errors and retries rather than a pass mark.
- Detections are tested against benign fixtures as well as positives, so a noisy rule fails.
| What you need | Forge WorkshopIncluded in the platform | THM | RangeForce | Immersive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SOC investigation exercise | Yes See it live | TryHackMe: Documented for SOC investigation exercise | RangeForce: Documented for SOC investigation exercise | Immersive: Documented for SOC investigation exercise |
| Alert triage with true and false positive decisions | Yes See it live Every case ships with innocent lookalikes so closing everything scores badly. | TryHackMe: Documented for Alert triage with true and false positive decisions | RangeForce: Limited for Alert triage with true and false positive decisions | Immersive: Limited for Alert triage with true and false positive decisions |
| SIEM query and investigation practice | Yes See it live | TryHackMe: Documented for SIEM query and investigation practice | RangeForce: Documented for SIEM query and investigation practice | Immersive: Documented for SIEM query and investigation practice |
| Endpoint analysis and access | Yes See it live | TryHackMe: Limited for Endpoint analysis and access | RangeForce: Documented for Endpoint analysis and access | Immersive: Limited for Endpoint analysis and access |
| Threat hunting kept separate from alert triage | Yes See it live | TryHackMe: Documented for Threat hunting kept separate from alert triage | RangeForce: Documented for Threat hunting kept separate from alert triage | Immersive: Documented for Threat hunting kept separate from alert triage |
| Investigation that crosses multiple tools | Yes See it live One estate behind SIEM, EDR, case service, network devices and the wire. | TryHackMe: Documented for Investigation that crosses multiple tools | RangeForce: Documented for Investigation that crosses multiple tools | Immersive: Documented for Investigation that crosses multiple tools |
| Analyst report or evidence submission | Yes See it live | TryHackMe: Documented for Analyst report or evidence submission | RangeForce: Documented for Analyst report or evidence submission | Immersive: Documented for Analyst report or evidence submission |
| Measured investigation and response timing | Yes See it live Dwell time, containment time and SLA clocks are scored, not just recorded. | TryHackMe: Documented for Measured investigation and response timing | RangeForce: Documented for Measured investigation and response timing | Immersive: Documented for Measured investigation and response timing |
| Detection-engineering curriculum | Yes See it live | TryHackMe: Documented for Detection-engineering curriculum | RangeForce: Documented for Detection-engineering curriculum | Immersive: Documented for Detection-engineering curriculum |
| SOAR concepts and workflow training | Yes See it live | TryHackMe: Limited for SOAR concepts and workflow training | RangeForce: Limited for SOAR concepts and workflow training | Immersive: Documented for SOAR concepts and workflow training |
| Learner authors an executable SOAR playbookDeliberately stricter than the row above: a SOAR-looking screen is not a runtime. | Yes See it live Draft, run, fail, repair and rerun against the live estate, with an audit trail. | Immersive: Documented for Learner authors an executable SOAR playbook | ||
| Connector failure and replay debugger for automation | Yes See it live Deterministic integration faults with idempotent retries. Not established for any vendor in the research. | |||
| Configuration changes alter the exercise | Yes See it live Firewall, routing and policy edits change what the wire and the SIEM then show. | TryHackMe: Limited for Configuration changes alter the exercise | RangeForce: Documented for Configuration changes alter the exercise | Immersive: Documented for Configuration changes alter the exercise |
| Rogue access point owned by the estate, not scripted | Yes See it live | |||
| Each scenario carries its own SIEM, alerts and case databaseNo shared global console: an alert raises a case on the estate it came from, and cannot leak into another team's exercise. | Yes See it live | TryHackMe: Limited for Each scenario carries its own SIEM, alerts and case database |
The run behind this line: Write the search that catches the persistence
A detection-engineering bench: the persistence is already planted, and the deliverable is a search that finds it without drowning in noise.
Opponent: Quiet operator relying on names that look like real software. Shaped after Persistence tradecraft documented across ATT&CK T1547, T1543 and T1053. Technique and zone identifiers are published by MITRE and ISA/IEC; the mapping is ours and is not an accreditation.
How it starts — the message delivered to the mailbox
- From
- Microsoft 365 Message Center <messagecenter@m365-notices.example>
- Subject
- Action required: OneDrive sync client update for your device
- Attachment
- OneDriveSyncUpdate.lnk (Windows shortcut)
- A shortcut file posing as an updater
- A vendor notice sent from a domain the vendor does not own
- The get-out clause at the end, added so the reader does not ask IT
Graded verdict: phish — T1566.001. Nothing here sends or resolves anywhere real.
The steps, and the zone each one crosses
| # | Tactic | ATT&CK | On the range | IEC 62443 zone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Initial access | T1566.001 Phishing: spearphishing attachment | The shortcut runs the loader and writes it to ProgramData. | Enterprise |
| 2 | Persistence | T1547.001 Registry Run key | A Run value named OneDriveSync points at C:\ProgramData\rt.exe. | Enterprise |
| 3 | Persistence | T1543.003 Windows service | A service called WinTelemetrySvc is installed and started. | Enterprise |
| 4 | Persistence | T1053.005 Scheduled task | taskeng launches a hidden PowerShell script from ProgramData. | Enterprise |
Zones in this run: Enterprise (Purdue level 4/5, via Internet mail and web egress); Identity (Purdue level 4, via LDAP and Kerberos to the domain controllers). How the zone model is used.
The alerts the SIEM raises from this run
Run key written to a user-writable path
HKCU Run value whose data points at ProgramData, Temp or AppData.
endpoint agent · stage 2 · LINE-WORKSHOP-01 · T1547.001
Service installed with a suspicious image path
7045 where the image path is outside Program Files or System32.
endpoint agent · stage 3 · LINE-WORKSHOP-02 · T1543.003
Hidden PowerShell launched by the task engine
taskeng.exe or svchost as the parent of powershell -w hidden.
endpoint agent · stage 4 · LINE-WORKSHOP-03 · T1053.005
What the case has to hold before it closes
- The search that finds all three persistence mechanisms
- The false-positive rate the search produces against the clean estate
- The artifact each hit points at
- The removal steps, in an order that does not destroy the evidence
Start learning this line
Build the detection and the playbook on the bench, compiled by the same engine the graded cases run.
A tick means the other platform's own documentation shows it. A question mark means we could not confirm it publicly — it is never a claim that they lack it. Every Forge yes opens the working screen rather than a screenshot.