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Semiconductor Manufacturing

Red Team Assessment for a Global Leader in the Semiconductor Industry

A global semiconductor manufacturer with employees spread across dozens of countries asked Payatu to red team its entire IT landscape, including recent acquisitions. A phishing campaign gave the team an easy foothold, exposing a network far larger and more exposed than the client expected.

Red Team Assessment

At a glance

INDUSTRY

Semiconductor Manufacturing

CLIENT PROFILE

A global semiconductor manufacturer with 30,000+ employees across 35 countries

SERVICES

Red Team Assessment

ENGAGEMENT

Full IT landscape red team assessment, including recent acquisitions and remote workforce risk

key Numbers

60%

Clicked

100%

Compromised

25,000+

Computers Found Inside the Network

5/5

Client Delivery Rating

Key Takeaways

Client – A global semiconductor manufacturer with 30,000+ employees across 35 countries, a decade-plus leader in its field, with a majority of staff working remotely at the time of the engagement.

Problem – With so many employees off the corporate network, the client needed to know whether its IT infrastructure, including recently acquired companies, could withstand a real intrusion attempt from the internet and from social engineering.

What Payatu did – We assessed 100-200 client-owned websites/domains, tested web, network, server & mobile assets, and ran a phishing campaign where 60% clicked and shared VPN credentials, gaining access to a 25,000+ computer internal network.

Outcome – The client rated the engagement 5/5 for professionalism, performance, and on-time delivery. They used our findings to prioritize fixes across authentication, phishing defense, and internal exploitation paths.

the challenge

Why the client called us in

Our client, a global semiconductor manufacturer and a decade-plus leader in its field, had a majority of its 30,000+ employees working remotely and wanted an honest read on whether its IT infrastructure, including the companies it had recently acquired, could withstand a targeted attack. The size of the organization, spread across 35 countries with manufacturing and distribution centers worldwide, made it genuinely hard even for us to identify where the crown jewels sat. Leadership needed to know if intrusion attempts launched from the internet, or through its own people, could get through.

Assess the robustness of the entire IT landscape, including acquired companies
Test whether social engineering could get an attacker onto the internal network
Get a realistic picture of detection and response readiness against a targeted attack

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scope of engagement

What was in scope

Web servers and applications
Mobile application
Network
Servers
Social engineering attacks (phishing, impersonation) against employees

Our Approach

How Payatu ran the engagement

01

Domain and Asset Discovery

Catalogued every website and domain owned by the client and its acquisitions, roughly 100-200 in total, and assessed each for vulnerabilities.

02

Web, Network, and Mobile Assessment

Tested the identified web applications and networks, then completed a full assessment of the client's mobile application.

03

Phishing Campaign

Built a mail template that mimicked the client's internal IT department and sent it to employees, refining delivery until it reliably reached the inbox; 60% of recipients clicked the link and reset their VPN credentials on our dummy site.

04

Internal Network Compromise

Used the harvested VPN credentials, obtained in part by social engineering the client's sales team for endpoint details, to log into the VPN and move inside the network of 25,000+ computers and 30,000+ email accounts.

Key findings

What we found

HIGH

Social Engineering - Phishing

A phishing campaign captured valid employee credentials and led to a bypass of the internal network perimeter.

HIGH

Privilege Escalation

Escalation from an initial foothold to elevated access inside the network.

HIGH

Network Exploitation

Exploitation of internal network weaknesses following the initial compromise.

the outcome

Results and Impact

The engagement showed the client exactly how an attacker could get from a phishing email to full internal network access, and gave its security team a prioritized list of fixes across authentication, network hardening, and phishing defense. The client's CISO rated the engagement 5 out of 5 for professionalism, performance, and on-time delivery, an uncommon response for an organization of this scale.

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