Getting breached is the surest way to learn your organization’s cybersecurity vulnerabilities. And that’s why you need to hack yourself before threat actors do. A cyber breach and attack simulation, also called red teaming, is best to understand vulnerabilities in practice, rather than just theory. What can you do before, during and after a simulated attack to boost your defenses?
Types of Simulations
Some methods for finding vulnerabilities are easily confused with each other. Here are three basic approaches:
Vulnerability assessment: This is a routine semi- or fully-automated scan for publicly known vulnerabilities. The system harvests data from the network and connected devices and compares this to a database of known vulnerabilities. This is not a simulation exercise.
Penetration testing: An example of how security systems could be breached. It shows how a threat actor could gain access somewhere in your IT infrastructure and make their way to sensitive data or systems. This is mostly manual and applies the skills of the pen tester to find a way in.
Red teaming: Also known as red team versus blue team exercises, these simulate a sustained attack (by the red team) to test the way your defenders (the blue team) detect and respond to an attack. The idea is to test systems, processes and people all at once.
The last two are sometimes confused with each other. What is pen testing compared to red team testing, exactly? The main difference is that pen testing tests specific systems (hardware and software). It’s human versus machine. Meanwhile, red team versus blue team exercises test your digital defenses as a whole — hardware, software, people, policies, procedures and more. It’s one team of humans against another, each with its respective tool ..
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