TL;DR:

• Red teaming simulates real cyber attacks to test an organization’s security culture.
• Penetration testing identifies vulnerabilities within an IT infrastructure using a variety of tactics, techniques and procedures.
• Red team assessments are more comprehensive and time-consuming than penetration tests, depending on the scope.
• The choice between red teaming and penetration testing depends on an organization’s goals and cybersecurity maturity.
• The Synack PTaaS Platform combines the best of pentesting and red teaming for comprehensive security testing.

Red teaming and pentesting are two different approaches to evaluating an organization’s cybersecurity

While pentesting focuses on identifying vulnerabilities within an IT infrastructure, red teaming goes further by mimicking a real-life attacker and attempting to achieve a specific objective, such as accessing target data or systems. The key difference is that red teaming tests the strength of a company’s security culture, not just its systems.

Unveiling Red Teaming: A Real-World Attack Simulation

Red team assessments are designed to simulate real-world cyber attacks. Unlike traditional testing methods, these assessments are not bound by time constraints or the need to communicate with IT or security personnel. The red team uses a variety of tactics, techniques and tools to infiltrate target systems or data.

The Purpose of Red Teaming

The primary goal of a red team assessment is to test the organization’s defense capabilities, specifically the ability of the ‘blue team’ to detect and respond to an attack. This method also evaluates the organization’s security awareness and culture.

The Process and Duration of Red Teaming

Red team assessments tend to be more comprehensive and time-consuming than traditional penetration testing. They are more targeted and can extend from three weeks to several months. During this period, the red team emulates a real-world cyber attacker, aiming to avoid detection and manipulate policies, procedures and people. This exercise helps organizations identify the strengths and weaknesses in their security defenses and culture.

The Unique Approach of Red Teaming

Red teaming uses a “black box” approach. It has complete freedom in terms of attack vectors. For organizations with a high level of cybersecurity maturity, red team assessments are necessary for achieving FedRAMP ATO for cloud service providers.

Penetration Testing: A Tool for Identifying Vulnerabilities

Penetration testing is a security assessment method where a skilled tester, or group of testers, uses a combination of tools and manual exploit techniques to identify security vulnerabilities within an organization’s IT infrastructure.

The Goal of Penetration Testing

The primary aim of penetration testing is to identify weaknesses in the defense capabilities before an adversary can exploit them. It goes beyond vulnerability scanning by actively exploiting vulnerabilities to understand the security strengths and weaknesses of the target systems.

The Duration and Focus of Pentesting

Traditional pentests can be shorter, cheaper and quicker than red team assessments, typically lasting three to six weeks. Continuous penetration testing is also a common practice, especially as an organization continues to strengthen their security posture. They focus on specific areas, providing an invaluable tool for improving cybersecurity. They help find unpatched vulnerabilities in systems, applications and networks and provide independent validation that security defenses are sufficiently resilient.

Deciding Between Red Teaming and Penetration Testing

The choice between red teaming and penetration testing depends on the organization’s goals and level of cybersecurity maturity. For organizations just starting their security journey, it is recommended to begin with a vulnerability assessment. Once the basics are covered, a penetration test can be conducted to identify vulnerabilities and provide remediation recommendations based on the findings.

As an organization’s security posture matures and regular penetration tests identify fewer vulnerabilities, red team assessments can be considered. They provide a more detailed assessment of an organization’s security defenses and culture.

In most cases, a combination of continuous vulnerability scanning, regular pentesting and periodic red team assessments is the best approach. Vulnerability management is a basic security hygiene step, and penetration testing provides a more detailed assessment and identification of issues. Red team assessments add an additional layer of testing to understand the strengths and weaknesses in an organization’s security defenses and culture.

FAQs

What is the difference between red teaming and pentesting?

Red teaming is a more comprehensive and time-consuming exercise compared to pentesting. While pentesting focuses on identifying vulnerabilities, red teaming evaluates an organization’s response capabilities and security measures in a more objective-oriented manner.

What is the difference between red teaming and black box testing?

Red teaming and black box testing both involve assessing a system without prior knowledge, but red teaming goes beyond just finding vulnerabilities to simulate real-world attacks and test defenses. Black box testing focuses more on identifying vulnerabilities without the broader context of a real attack scenario.

What is the purpose of red teaming?

The purpose of red reaming is to simulate real cyber attacks by ethical hackers in order to uncover vulnerabilities and weaknesses in your organization’s systems. By mimicking the tactics of malicious actors, red teaming helps proactively identify and address potential security risks before they can be exploited.

What is red team testing?

Red team testing is a method that uses real-world cyber attacks to identify vulnerabilities in an organization’s security system. It involves ethical hacking techniques, like social engineering, to uncover potential breaches and weaknesses that could be exploited by malicious actors.

The Synack PTaaS Platform: A Combination of Pentesting and Red Teaming on One Platform

As malicious hackers get more sophisticated with their tactics and continue to assess multiple different avenues to infiltrate networks, organizations must take proactive measures to ensure the security of critical data and information. A robust security testing solution combines the best of pentesting and red teaming, giving organizations the ability to find critical vulnerabilities and better understand the effectiveness of their defenses and overall security posture.

The Synack PTaaS Platform harnesses a highly-vetted and talented community of security researchers, the Synack Red Team (SRT), to discover critical vulnerabilities before the bad actors do through on-demand or continuous security testing. Our security researchers use their unique skillsets and techniques to test the hardness of an organization’s attack surface, working with security teams to address critical vulnerabilities and reduce risk faster. Teams are able to learn from their results and better prioritize their resources. In additional to pentesting services, the Synack Platform also offers red team operations using the SRT, giving organizations the ability to assess their defenses though simulated attacks.

To learn more about our security testing offerings, request a demo.