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.
Written by
Principal Security Researcher at PlatformSecurity focused on emerging technologies and attack techniques, from adversary simulation and red teaming to OSINT and threat research.