The red team is usually composed of "ethical hackers" whose goal is to breach a computer system. They work with well-defined objectives, which include infiltrating the system and deceiving the defense systems and the people responsible for them (the defenders, the blue team).
When a company hires a Red Team, it has a group of people experienced in challenging corporate cybersecurity. This aspect is crucial to understanding how well the company can withstand potential attacks from rivals.
Below is the index of topics that will be covered in our article on the Red Team:
The benefits of a Red Team
The Red Team challenges corporate security systems by identifying their weaknesses. It also identifies alternative outcomes and explores the consequences of a plan of action or attack.
It then tests the system, network, applications, and all related factors from an adversary's perspective.
Finally, it understands how an adversary can enter the system and move within it. Therefore, hiring a group of people to test and monitor corporate security capabilities is a guarantee to protect your company from external attacks.
A Red Team's task is to verify the level of security to see how it will respond in real-time to potential attacks before they occur.
Therefore, it is important to rely on professionals with different backgrounds and specialties that allow for a complete Red Team, ensuring that the company is protected from various attacker perspectives.
The Red Team should periodically challenge corporate security measures throughout the year. The main task is to test the infrastructure to see its level of resistance to different attack methodologies. It might be a good idea to ask a Red Team to test security when new software is implemented.
Who needs a Red Team?
After reading the introduction and the first paragraph, you might think that a small or medium-sized business does not need a Red Team. However, this approach could endanger your company. You might mistakenly think that no one would bother to attack your company: companies of all types and sizes are often victims of external attacks.
Most companies that turn to a Red Team are involved in the IT sector. However, these services are not limited to these sectors. In fact, any job that requires strict security could benefit from this form of testing.
A Red Team operation includes booking tests (network, app, mobile, and other devices), social engineering (on-site, phone, email, chat), and physical intrusion (cameras and alarm exclusion).
Another objection often raised before turning to a Red Team is the cost, which sometimes seems excessive. A global approach in terms of a Red Team should not be prohibitive in terms of costs. Our goal is to customize operations based on your company's specific needs while scaling or reducing activities accordingly.
How does a Red Team work?
A Red Team can provide a clear picture of where and how an attacker can breach the network and how much damage they can cause to a company. In most cases, an experienced, well-equipped team is hired that has the experience and ability to breach security without any knowledge of the infrastructure's defense networks.
But how do these professionals operate? What actions do they concretely take to assess the defense capabilities of systems? Generally, the Red Team uses various techniques, including phishing and social engineering, aimed at obtaining the usernames and passwords of company employees.
The strategies they adopt can be multiple:
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conduct remote attacks via the Internet;
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implement various social engineering strategies;
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breach physical security systems such as video surveillance, automated door, window, or safe closures;
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any other action aimed at illicitly obtaining sensitive data or information.
Most of the time, they consider more people, resources, and time. At the same time, they delve deep to concretely understand the realistic level of risk and vulnerability regarding a company's technology, human, and physical resources.
Our Red Team services are executed as a project rather than a series of standard and homogeneous tests that apply to all realities. We will create a proposal based on the client's needs. This work will be followed by a report showing the work done with the company in detail and all the areas we managed to access.
When to use a Red Team?
In the complex landscape of cybersecurity, Penetration Tests have become a must for most industrial sectors. For example, companies that accept or process payment cards must comply with industry standards. Or healthcare organizations that present sensitive patient data.
However, it is not always necessary to turn to a Red Team, but in some cases, it is essential to rely on the professionalism of these figures.
As mentioned earlier, one of the most common reasons companies turn to the Red Team is the implementation of new software. Your goal is to understand how this novelty will respond to attacks from real aggressors. Therefore, the Red Team should emulate attacks without employees knowing to see how these implementations react.
The second reason companies turn to these figures is when there has been a breach or attack. Indeed, regardless of whether the attack was made in your sector, you should understand how your security system would react if it happened to your company.
Finally, it is good to use a Red Team even sporadically. Your company could continue to grow, and threats could be just around the corner.
Conclusions
Depending on some elements and especially the complexity, the task of the Red Team could last from two weeks to a couple of months. If this time frame seems extended, think about how such an investment could be crucial to prevent potential breaches.
Indeed, the time to complete the test is certainly less than what it might take to recover from an attack by external hackers.
Once the Red Team has completed its tests, a document is delivered expressing the conclusions they have reached, the successes, the failures, the testing methodologies used, as well as the application of preventive measures.
Ultimately, the Red Team emulates the attacks that an attacker could execute on the security system implemented by the company, identifying the most vulnerable areas. In this sense, it represents an excellent opportunity to understand the strengths and weaknesses when facing such events. Obviously, with the aim of improving defense systems for the future.
The Red Team differs significantly from the Blue Team and the Purple Team. These three systems combined offer the necessary peace of mind to operate and keep the network, employees, and end-user data secure.
