The teams approach is often adopted in larger organizations to assess and strengthen the security of a network. There are two main types of teams used in simulating cyber attacks. These teams are designated as blue and red. Their goals are different in the simulation and are based on the confrontation of hackers and the security specialists. Such conditions are very close to the real attacks and help specialists better understand what they have to confront in real attacks. Therefore, this approach provides better security analysis and preparation for potential attacks.
A red team is a group of specialists who have been authorized and structured to imitate a possible adversary’s offense or penetration abilities against an organization’s security posture. The red team takes on the role of an attacker or rival in order to find weaknesses in a system. The responsibilities of red teams include social engineering and assessing the vulnerabilities in the security by penetration testing. A blue team is in charge of protecting an organization’s information infrastructure by maintaining its defense capabilities against a group of pretend attackers. These teams analyze the digital footprints, monitor the activities within the system and adjust the security. Purple teaming can be defined as a security test activity in which a group of professionals plays both the red and blue team roles, with the goal of delivering a better, deeper assessment activity that provides more personalized, realistic security to the enterprise being tested.
The most common exercises that include such activities are related to simulating a real cyber attack situation. In these scenarios, both teams try to achieve their own goals. The red team tries to find vulnerabilities in the network and exploit them, whereas the blue team seeks possibilities to prevent such actions by monitoring the activities in the system and adjusting the security based on the conditions. Such approach allows to assess the general security capabilities of an organization much better than simply analyzing it for vulnerabilities as it allows to simulate a real attack. This is not only beneficial in terms of being prepared for potential attacks, but having the specialists practice and better orient in such situations. This results in strengthening the overall security of the network and helps develop strategies to be adopted when the attacks occur.