Introduction

Introduction in brief to Red Teaming process and its difference with Penetration Testing.

What is Red Teaming?

• "Red teaming can be defined as the process of testing your cybersecurity effectiveness through the removal of defender bias by applying an adversarial lens to your organization."

• A red team leverages attack simulation methodology. They simulate the actions of sophisticated attackers (or advanced persistent threats) to determine how well your organization’s people, processes and technologies could resist an attack that aims to achieve a specific objective.

Difference between Penetration Testing and Red Teaming

• Objective

  • Penetration testing: Identify exploitable vulnerabilities and gain access to a system.

  • Red teaming: Access specific systems or data by emulating a real-world adversary.

• Timeframe

  • Penetration testing: Short: One day to a few weeks.

  • Red teaming: Longer: Several weeks to more than a month.

• Toolset

  • Penetration testing: Commercially available pen-testing tools.

  • Red teaming: Wide variety of tools, tactics and techniques, including custom tools and previously unknown exploits.

• Awareness

  • Penetration testing: Defenders know a pen test is taking place.

  • Red teaming: Defenders are unaware a red team exercise is underway.

• Vulnerabilities

  • Penetration testing: Known vulnerabilities.

  • Red teaming: Known and unknown vulnerabilities.

• Scope

  • Penetration testing: Test targets are narrow and pre-defined, such as whether a firewall configuration is effective or not.

  • Red teaming: Test targets can cross multiple domains, such as exfiltrating sensitive data.

• Testing

  • Penetration testing: Security system is tested independently in a pen test.

  • Red teaming: Systems targeted simultaneously in a red team exercise.

• Post-breach activity

  • Penetration testing: Pen testers don’t engage in post-breach activity.

  • Red teaming: Red teamers engage in post-breach activity.

• Goal

  • Penetration testing: Compromise an organization’s environment.

  • Red teaming: Act like real attackers and exfiltrate data to launch further attacks.

• Results

  • Penetration testing: Identify exploitable vulnerabilities and provide technical recommendations.

  • Red teaming: Evaluate overall cybersecurity posture and provide recommendations for improvement.

Source: https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/red-teaming