Red teaming is the organising of cybersecurity experts who simulate real-world attacks on the assets of enterprises. They utilise techniques and procedures disinterested parties or even adversaries may use to attack organisations in real-life. Often, companies hire third-party red teams in order to truly see the outsider perspective on exploiting their businesses.
Unlike in penetration testing, red teams customise necessary tools according to what they deem suitable for the attacks and do not utilise predefined processes. They don’t focus on one aspect alone, their attacks target the systems, technologies and people of the companies. Red teaming also seeks to discover new vulnerabilities and not only exploit a known one.
To start, red teams conduct reconnaissance of their client companies to observe what is happening in the company and gain insights from what they find. With this, red teams are able to tailor techniques according to the companies’ vulnerabilities and create custom tools for conducting the attacks.
After this, red teams will exploit the systems and assets of companies using such personalised procedures. The results of this simulation include a report of all of the vulnerable assets and respective remedies to be submitted to the companies.
Various assets are included in red teaming, from the companies’ systems, networks, physical facilities and even people. Red teams may conduct different hacking techniques, social engineering and exploitation of the buildings of the client companies.
To fully simulate a real-life attack, employees of the companies should be left unaware of the simulation taking place. Also, red teaming is not a one-time process, as it also ensures continuity by giving remedies to the vulnerabilities found.
With red teaming, companies will be informed of the possible weaknesses within their company, whether it is their systems, infrastructures and even their people.
