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emulation-volt-typhoon

Volt Typhoon (Vanguard Panda, PRC) adversary-emulation playbook — edge-device initial access, living-off-the-land-only operations, NTDS/credential theft, long-dwell pre-positioning toward critical infrastructure, multi-hop proxy egress. Use when emulating stealthy LOTL pre-positioning. Triggers on: 'emulate Volt Typhoon', 'Vanguard Panda', 'BRONZE SILHOUETTE', 'living off the land', 'edge device', 'pre-positioning', 'critical infrastructure persistence'.

Quality

88%

Does it follow best practices?

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SecuritybySnyk

Passed

No findings from the security scan

SKILL.md
Quality
Evals
Security

Quality

Content

82%Weight 40%Scale 1-5

Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.

A tight, highly actionable playbook body: concrete tooling, a copy-paste seed profile, a sequenced kill chain, and real RoE gates for the destructive edge-device operations. Main gaps are the absence of per-phase verification checkpoints (dwell-time measurement in particular) and an unverifiable external reference, plus time-sensitive CISA citations embedded in core guidance.

Suggestions

Add explicit per-phase verification checkpoints — e.g. confirm the edge foothold and proxy egress before credential access, and define how dwell time (the stated success metric) is measured and recorded.

Isolate the time-sensitive CTI citations (CISA BOD 26-02, AA24-038A) in a dated 'CTI delta' note so aging references can be pruned without touching core guidance.

Bundle references/apt-groups.md with the skill (or inline the relevant industry → actor rows) so the '../../references/apt-groups.md' pointer does not dangle.

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

The body is dense and lean — a fillable JSON seed, a compact kill-chain table, and tight OPSEC/RoE sections with no explanations of concepts Claude already knows. Not a 5 because time-sensitive citations ('CISA BOD 26-02 (Feb 2026)', 'CISA AA24-038A') sit in core guidance rather than an isolated, prunable section, and the intro blockquote slightly repeats traits restated in the OPSEC section.

4 / 5

Actionability

Fully concrete for a planning skill: a copy-paste-ready ThreatProfile JSON, exact LOLBin tool names (netsh, wmic, ntdsutil, vssadmin, reg, dnscmd), MITRE technique IDs per phase, and explicit per-phase executing-agent → sub-skill paths. The guidance is specific down to which sub-skill to invoke at each step.

5 / 5

Workflow Clarity

A clearly numbered 8-phase kill chain plus a CONOPS list cross-referencing phases ('(2-3)', '(5-8)'), with explicit safety gates (device-write authorization, 'confirm a config backup exists before exploiting', an EMERGENCY abort trigger, IT/OT boundary). Not a 5 because operational verification checkpoints are missing — no step to verify the edge foothold or proxy egress before proceeding, and no dwell-time checkpoint despite dwell being the stated success metric.

4 / 5

Progressive Disclosure

Well-sectioned ~95-line body with clearly signaled, one-level-deep references (the industry → actor map in references/apt-groups.md and per-phase sub-skill SKILL.md paths). Not a 5 because the bundle ships no references/ directory, so the '../../references/apt-groups.md' path cannot be verified from the skill's location and may dangle.

4 / 5

Total

17

/

20

Passed

Description

92%Weight 40%Scale 1-5

Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.

A high-quality description: third-person, specific, non-padded, with an explicit 'Use when' clause and a concrete trigger list including actor aliases. The only weakness is that the trigger list omits a couple of natural variations ('LOTL', 'NTDS') that the body's own when_to_use metadata includes.

Suggestions

Add 'LOTL' and 'NTDS dump' to the description's trigger list — they are natural phrasing a red-team user would say and already appear in the metadata when_to_use.

Consider trimming 'critical infrastructure persistence' to 'critical infrastructure' since the body treats persistence as a behavior, not a separate trigger phrase.

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

Lists five concrete capability areas — 'edge-device initial access, living-off-the-land-only operations, NTDS/credential theft, long-dwell pre-positioning toward critical infrastructure, multi-hop proxy egress' — which comprehensively covers this actor playbook's TTP surface. Not a 4 because coverage of the actor's behavior is complete rather than having minor gaps.

5 / 5

Completeness

Explicitly answers both: what ('adversary-emulation playbook — edge-device initial access, ... multi-hop proxy egress') and when ('Use when emulating stealthy LOTL pre-positioning. Triggers on: ...'). Concrete trigger phrases are provided, matching the top anchor exactly.

5 / 5

Trigger Term Quality

Strong natural triggers including actor aliases ('emulate Volt Typhoon', 'Vanguard Panda', 'BRONZE SILHOUETTE') and technique phrases ('living off the land', 'pre-positioning'). Not a 5 because common variations a user would actually say are missing from the trigger list — the 'LOTL' acronym and 'NTDS dump' (both present in the body's when_to_use) are absent.

4 / 5

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

A single named-actor niche dominated by the actor name and its aliases; 'living off the land' is Volt Typhoon's signature behavior and maps to it over any sibling playbook. Conflict risk is minimal.

5 / 5

Total

19

/

20

Passed

Validation

87%

Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.

Validation — 14 / 16 Passed

Validation for skill structure

CriteriaDescriptionResult

metadata_version

'metadata.version' is missing

Warning

metadata_field

'metadata' should map string keys to string values

Warning

Total

14

/

16

Passed

Repository

PurpleAILAB/Decepticon

Path

packages/decepticon/decepticon/skills/standard/soundwave/threat-profile/emulation/volt-typhoon/SKILL.md

Reviewed

Table of Contents

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