Choose Your Own Adventure: Red, Blue and Purple Teams

Many of us have heard the terms red team and blue team, but what do they actually mean, and which team would you like to be a part of? There is also the ever-more popular collaborative approach of the purple team. Depending on your strengths and personality, you may be more advantageous in one team over another. Let's take a look at each team before you choose your adventure of red, blue or purple team. But before you get started, make sure you create a strong foundation of knowledge with a beginner training course like an A+ certification course.  

Red Team 

The red team is known as the offence team and consists of cybersecurity professionals who are ethical hackers acting as adversaries to the company they are working for. This team utilizes all the available methods to find weaknesses in people, processes, and technology. After simulating attacks, the red team comes up with recommendations and plans on how to strengthen the organization’s cybersecurity profile.

  

Before the red team performs an attack, they will spend a significant amount of time planning, researching, and carrying out reconnaissance depending on the type of attack being planned. Some attacks they would perform include social engineering attacks, penetration testing, card cloning, intercepting communication, and port scanning. In addition to the common hacker techniques, red team members will also use custom-made tools to get into networks and use the privilege and knowledge they have to their company to exploit any and all vulnerabilities. Red team members will go as far as their contract allows.

  

To succeed in a red team, you must be an out-of-the-box thinker, creative, have deep knowledge of systems, be adaptive, and be quick on your feet. You are acting as an attacker and must be fearless. Training that can help you learn the skills necessary are the PenTest+ certification for penetration testing and Security+ certification to create a strong foundation of vulnerability testing.  

Blue Team

 

The blue team is the defensive team, protecting the company’s assets and consists of cybersecurity professionals who have an inside-out complete view of the organization. Their job is to strengthen the security walls and work closely with senior management on cost-benefit analysis of security controls and threats. This team utilizes monitoring tools, conducts risk assessments, develops action plans, and implements controls. They come up with ways to mitigate risk, which could include anything from introducing stronger password policies to educating staff through cybersecurity training.

  

The blue team spends a lot of time gathering data and analyzing risk through performing DNS audits, conducting digital footprint analysis, installing endpoint security software, segregating networks, and ensuring firewalls and other antivirus software are kept up to date. Through these network vulnerability scans, they will determine if any more countermeasures need to be implemented. The blue team continuously defends, changes, and re-groups defence mechanisms to make incident response stronger.

  

To succeed in a blue team, you must be organized and detail-oriented, understand Wireshark and SIEM tools, be skilled at planning and looking ahead, and be able to follow the best and proven strategies. You are the protector and must be able to follow industry-standard procedures. Training that can help you learn the skills necessary are the CySA+ certification for reverse engineering and analyzing human behaviour and the Network+ certification that will create a strong foundation of network operations and security.  

Purple Team

 

Using a purple team is a relatively new approach that combines red and blue team members to collaborate and maximize cyber capabilities through continuous feedback and knowledge transfer. Prior to the use of a purple team, a lot of the time the red and blue team would not communicate or share their “secrets” with each other, making the exercises they conduct almost counterintuitive.  The purple team members get their red and blue teammates to work together and share insights about their resources, reporting, and knowledge. Purple team members need to foster their communication and collaboration skills to bring their teammates together A purple team may not be permanent, but they can be used intermittently throughout the year to evaluate the results of both teams and outline future training and procedures.

 

The red and blue teams have quite different techniques and exercises, while the purple team is more about collaboration. So, which do you choose? Get started today with live, instructor-led courses or self-paced courses with TechnoEdge Learning.

Written by Lindsay McKay