Ridgeback Preemptive Security Platform is a network defense solution that operates at OSI Layers 2-4 to intercept and disrupt adversary activity before compromise occurs. Rather than relying on signatures or passive traffic analysis, the platform interacts directly with adversaries in real time using a technique called "Phantom" — presenting decoy assets on-demand to engage, detect, and halt lateral movement across the network. The platform requires no agents on endpoints and deploys in under 15 minutes with minimal configuration. It covers all VLANs and provides 100% visibility of active MAC addresses, IPs, and services across IT, OT, IoT, unmanaged, and vendor devices within approximately 1 MB per broadcast domain. Detection is triggered by actual adversary interaction rather than inference, resulting in a claimed false positive rate of 0% and an alert-to-incident ratio of 1:1. Automated containment through Phantom responses and host isolation is designed to reduce mean time to containment to seconds. The platform produces continuous, real-time compliance evidence and supports regulatory alignment with NIST, CMMC, and FTC requirements. It also provides Zero Trust validation at the network layer. Ridgeback is positioned to complement or reduce reliance on traditional EDR and NDR tools by addressing blind spots such as unmanaged and IoT devices and encrypted traffic analysis gaps. It targets both large enterprises and smaller, resource-constrained organizations.