Red Teaming: Meaning, Methodology, and Benefits

Red Teaming

A well-known fact is that Red Teaming is acknowledged by such big organizations as Microsoft, crediting it with high priority and conducting the service on a regular basis.

You may ask why they prefer it to other services, and how it really helps big businesses. Moreover, lots of small and medium-size organizations choose this service too, in order to test the speed and quality of an organization’s response to unexpected cybercrimes. So what are the main points of implementing red teaming, and why do businesses of all sizes choose it? We have prepared some information regarding this topic that will answer all of the questions above.

 

What is Red Teaming?

Red Teaming is a full-scope, multi-layered attack simulation. It is performed by a group of specialists who are, in fact, hackers. Their main task lies in finding ways to penetrate the system and simulate any kind of data breach.

What is it made for? The answer is simple – during the attack simulation hackers seek for gaps and vulnerabilities within and outside of the system, and in addition, check the expertise level of the company’s cybersecurity staff members (if there are such team members). So, the main task of the red team is to assess the speed and efficiency of the company’s response to an attack. As for organizations, it gives an opportunity to learn how to identify and eliminate hackers and errors ASAP.

Red Team is able to expose vulnerabilities in:

  • Technology & Information Security
  • People
  • Physical objects

Red Team is able to expose vulnerabilities in

 

Red Team vs Blue Team

New to cybersecurity businesses that are considering implementing risk management and shielding from hacking attacks may encounter such terminologies as “red and blue teams”. But what is the cybersecurity definition of these two teams?

What is Red Teaming

 

Red Team is (as you already know) the group of ethical hackers that use their expertise to penetrate the system and simulate a breach. By finishing the attack, they will provide the targeted company with all found gaps and vulnerabilities, and information regarding what should be done to prevent such cases from happening outside of a simulation. Moreover, Red Team is good at putting your cybersecurity employees to the test, providing them with advice, and disposing of the most inadequate individuals.

Blue Team is a group of security professionals that, unlike the Red Team, have all the needed insider data of an organization to provide it with maximum security from outside threats. Blue Team has to have access to detailed cybersecurity data, code architecture, and the company’s structure. Their goal is to build a strong cybersecurity policy and reinforce existing systems.

Obviously, if you implement both red and blue teaming you will push your cybersecurity to the maximum level. But if you want to incorporate these services step-by-step, we suggest starting with red teaming, as it will give you all necessary information about the existing troubles and ways to breach your data, which should be immediately solved with the blue team.

 

Red Teaming Methodology

The best choice to understand red teaming methodology is by examining the red teaming work process. The most common way of performing the service consist of the following steps:

  1. A client organization should provide the Red Team with the main goal of the exercise. For example, it may be asked to check the security level of a particular server with certain sensitive information;
  2. The Red Team starts to explore the target. They make a map of the target systems, including network services, web apps, and employee portals;
  3. The Red Team starts to look for the vulnerabilities and gaps that exist in the target section, typically it is done by using phishing techniques or XSS;
  4. They are waiting to get a response from a cybersecurity staff member and check their quality of work. Once valid access tokens are secured, the Red Team will use their access to probe for further vulnerabilities;
  5. If they find further vulnerabilities they escalate the level of access to the required level and try to get access to the target;
  6. As soon as the Red Team successfully gains access to the target, the system data or assets is reached.

 

Red Teaming Benefits

Some of the main benefits that red teaming gives to the organizations have been already mentioned above, but let’s refresh our memory with this list:

  1. Identifying the risk of an attack at the key business information assets;
  2. Getting an exclusive insight into how to get access to valuable data by using real hacking techniques and penetration methods;
  3. Checking the quality performance of cybersecurity employees or other staff members. (how quickly do they detect, respond, prevent and fix a hacking attack) ;
  4. As a result, getting to know what needs to be worked on and the quality of work of your staff members.

 

Conclusion

Red Teaming is a powerful technique for testing the security vulnerabilities and cybersecurity staff members of your organization. Red Team suggests a wide variety of ways to detect gaps and vulnerabilities, ways to penetrate the systems that no other service may provide.

If you want to discover vulnerabilities that go outside of a single cybersecurity service, or don’t know where to start with your cybersecurity, you should definitely choose Red Teaming. If you need help, contact us, we will provide you with some of the best teams that will do a good job, provide fast response, and save your money!

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