Many organizations use red teaming services to find vulnerabilities. But the real value of a red team exercise is often in training your defense. By simulating a realistic adversary, you can see how well your incident response plan actually works.
Beyond the Bug Hunt
A penetration test finds vulnerabilities. A red team exercise tests your entire organization.
- Test your detection: Do your tools fire when an attacker moves laterally or exfiltrates data?
- Test your people: Does your SOC team know how to triage a complex, multi stage attack?
- Test your process: How long does it take to move from an alert to containment?
Training Your Defense
A successful red team exercise provides a safe environment to fail. It is better to find a gap in your response during a simulation than during a real breach.
- Realistic scenarios: Red teams use the same techniques as real adversaries, such as social engineering.
- Measurable metrics: You get hard data on time to detect and time to respond.
- Gap analysis: Identify where you need better visibility, such as in your cloud environment.
Improving with Purple Teaming
To get the most value, consider following a red team exercise with purple team work. This allows your defenders to work directly with the attackers to tune their rules and close detection gaps.
- Collaborative tuning: Defenders see exactly how an attack was performed and can write better alerts.
- Shared knowledge: Attackers learn what defenses are most effective in your environment.
- Continuous improvement: Security becomes a feedback loop instead of a one time event.
Red teaming is the ultimate stress test for your security program. It provides the evidence you need to prioritize investments and build a team that is ready for anything. Need to test your defenses? Talk to our red team experts.