Avalon Technology Services | Security Operations & Incident Management

Avalon Technology Services | Security Operations & Incident Management | Threat Hunting & APT Detection

THE PROBLEM & THE APPROACH

A scan tells you what's flagged. A hunt tells you who's already inside.

The Challenge

Our Approach

Nation-state actors like Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon have proven they can sit inside federal networks for months or years without tripping a single alert, because nothing they do, valid credentials, built-in admin tools, looks abnormal to signature-based tools.
Avalon's hunters build agency-specific hypotheses from current intelligence and test them across endpoint, identity, network, and cloud telemetry for exactly this living-off-the-land tradecraft, not an IOC sweep of known-bad hashes.
FISMA, RMF continuous monitoring, and OMB M-21-31 all presume the agency can detect and investigate intrusions, and IGs increasingly test that presumption, an agency that can't answer "are we compromised right now?" carries unquantified risk on every authorization it holds.
Every hunt returns validated findings with an eviction-ready evidence package, or a documented, defensible negative for the scope and window examined, delivering RA-10/CA-7 implementation evidence either way.
Most federal SOCs are alert-centric, built around tool alerts and ticket queues, with nobody funded to go looking for what the tools missed, and NIST's own hunting control (RA-10) isn't allocated to any standard 800-53 baseline.
Avalon runs the hypothesis-driven hunt-enrich-operationalize loop as a discrete, fixed-price engagement, and converts hunt logic that produced value into Sigma rules and SIEM content your SOC keeps and runs after Avalon leaves.
CISA's proactive hunt mission for civilian agencies has been materially reduced by workforce and budget cuts since early 2025, so agencies that assumed CISA would eventually hunt their network can no longer schedule against that assumption.
Avalon hunts primarily on your existing telemetry stack, supplemented by agency-approved open-source tooling, no proprietary appliance, no data leaving your boundary, and no dependency on federal shared-service capacity.

Aligned To

NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 (RA-10, SI-4, CA-7, AU-6)
NIST CSF 2.0
OMB M-21-31
NIST SP 800-172 (3.11.2e, CMMC Level 3)
MITRE ATT&CK

FREQUENTLY ASKED

Questions, Answered.

Straight answers about scope, data handling, and what a hunt can, and can't, prove.

Talk to Our Team →

Federal Frameworks Addressed

MITRE ATT&CK
NIST SP 800-53 RA-10
NIST SP 800-172 (3.11.2e)
GSA HACS, Cyber Hunt

True in statute and doctrine, but CISA's proactive hunt capacity has been materially cut since early 2025, roughly a third of its workforce is gone, and it schedules to national priorities rather than your agency's timeline. It also doesn't deliver agency-owned detection content or compliance-mapped reporting. Avalon is the agency-directed complement, never a replacement.

Alert-driven defense answers "what did the tools flag?" Hunting answers "what did the tools miss?" Living-off-the-land tradecraft, valid credentials, built-in admin tools, is specifically engineered to look like your own IT staff. A hunt also stress-tests and strengthens the SOC's visibility; it's an upgrade to the program, not an indictment of it.

True, and Avalon isn't going to dress it up. The de-risking is structural: named key personnel with verifiable credentials who personally deliver, a fully transparent written methodology before award, firm-fixed pricing so performance risk sits with Avalon, and a Baseline Hunt sized under the simplified acquisition threshold so your exposure is small.

Because the incumbent would be testing its own work. Independence is most of the value, an outside hunter with no stake in the current architecture's reputation, at a task-order price small enough not to disturb the incumbent relationship.

Then you receive a documented, evidence-backed negative for the scope and window examined, the exact artifact your IG and Authorizing Official keep asking for, plus a visibility-gap map and a detection content pack. Every hunt returns those last two regardless of findings; "nothing found" has never meant "nothing learned."

No data leaves the boundary, analysis happens on agency consoles and agency-hosted tooling, and evidence stays under your records direction. Clearance requirements are addressed honestly: Avalon does not bid enclaves it cannot currently staff.

No, they answer different questions. Penetration testing asks "could someone get in?" Hunting asks "is someone already in?" Many agencies need both, and we'll help you scope which one, or both, in sequence, actually fits your question.

Threat Hunting & APT Detection

A scan tells you what's flagged. A hunt tells you who's already inside.

From hypothesis to eviction-ready evidence.

Threat Profiling & Visibility Assessment

Multi-Domain Hunting: Endpoint, Identity, Network & Cloud

Validation, Detection Engineering & Handoff

A single-enclave hunt runs 4–8 weeks; enterprise scopes run 8–12+ weeks.

Pre-Engagement

Kickoff & Visibility Assessment

Hypothesis Development & Instrumentation

Active Hunt Sprints

Validation & Reporting

Outbrief & Closeout

No appliance to buy. No data leaves your boundary.

Who Actually Shows Up

Speed & Dollar Accessibility

Independence

Compliance-Integrated Reporting

Questions, Answered.

Ready to know, with evidence, whether you're already compromised?

Threat Hunting & APT Detection

Threat Profiling & Visibility Assessment

Multi-Domain Hunting: Endpoint, Identity, Network & Cloud

Validation, Detection Engineering & Handoff

Pre-Engagement

Kickoff & Visibility Assessment

Hypothesis Development & Instrumentation

Active Hunt Sprints

Validation & Reporting

Outbrief & Closeout

Who Actually Shows Up

Speed & Dollar Accessibility

Independence

Compliance-Integrated Reporting

Often engaged alongside this service.

Questions, Answered.

Doesn't CISA already hunt federal networks for free?

We already have EDR and a SOC, why do we need a hunt?

How new is too new, when it comes to threat hunting specifically?

Why not just add this to our existing SOC contract?

What if you find nothing?

Does our data leave our network, and can you handle clearance concerns?

Is a threat hunt the same thing as a penetration test?

Ready to know, with evidence, whether you're already compromised?