Cybersecurity is a subject that has not gone unnoticed, being regularly reported in all national and international news channels.
There are now terms that are sometimes unknown to the public, but which are quite important and should be considered by companies and, in particular, by IT teams.
Red Team vs Blue Team, what are they and what is the difference between these concepts?
The Red Team consists of offensive security professionals who are specialists in simulating attacks on systems and breaking into defenses. This team is generally composed of independent, ethical hackers who objectively assess the security of the system.
They employ techniques that allow them to find weaknesses and exploit vulnerabilities, gaining unauthorized access to assets. As a result of these simulations, the red teams make recommendations and provide tips on how to strengthen the entity’s security posture.
Basically, after a simulation, the Red Team makes an assessment of the entity’s operational model, assembling a diagnosis and highlighting the main flaws and risks.
It is in this team that pentest exercises are used, a tool whose main goal is to detect and expose vulnerabilities in order to validate the effectiveness of security mechanisms, through social engineering, Phishing techniques, among others.
In turn, the Blue Team is made up of defensive security professionals, responsible for keeping the network’s internal defenses safe from all virtual attacks.
The Blue Team is made up of security professionals and have an internal vision of the organization. Their main task is then to protect the organization’s critical assets against any kind of cyber threat.
However, although this strategy is more important for the security team, the whole company should know what dangers to look out for, such as reporting unusual activities, suspicious behavior or unexpected emails. The importance of cybersecurity awareness is then underlined.
In this case, the teams perform DNS audits to avoid Phishing attacks, they also install security software, ensure that the Firewall access control is configured correctly, and also implement IDS and IPS software, as well as SIEM solutions.
In any of these teams, all systems are studied in detail, but with different purposes. The red team looks for gateways in order to test the effectiveness of network security, while the blue team looks for ways to protect against any malicious unknown, strengthening organizational security to the maximum.
By implementing these two approaches the benefits are clear. One team identifies vulnerabilities in the current system and the other, in parallel, ensures long-term protection. The main advantage is, of course, the continuous improvement of a company’s security posture, detecting weaknesses, turning them into strengths.
These exercises, combined, help organizations to:
- Identify points of vulnerability with regard to people, technologies and systems;
- Determine areas for improvement in defensive incident response processes across all phases;
- Build the organization’s first-hand experience of how to detect and contain a targeted attack;
- Develop response and remediation activities to bring the environment to a state of normal functioning.
The union of the two strategies is called Purple Team, which instead of working with the red team opposing the blue team, uses the advantages of both attack and defense methodologies to enhance the organization’s digital security.
CrowdStrike, ActiveSys’ recognized cybersecurity partner, typically recommends a ‘1-10-60 rule’, meaning organizations should be able to detect an intrusion in less than a minute, assess its risk level within 10 minutes and eject the adversary in less than an hour.
Physical security must also be considered, as there is the possibility of physical access to a customer’s website, among other sensitive points, where fake or cloned employee identities are used.
In short, using this Red Team vs Blue Team strategy is an effective way to eliminate weaknesses and maintain a robust security posture in a constantly evolving threat environment.
Opting to outsource these services is an asset in the sense that an external look can see the processes from another angle, not ignoring attack vectors that may be, in the eyes of the company, well protected.
ActiveSys is the ideal specialized support to help your company implement these methodologies that ensure maximum security. Do not hesitate to contact us.