Red teaming is now a well-established practice in the world of information security. To find weaknesses in an organization’s structure and defenses, red teams act as “ethical hackers.”

definition of a blue team:

A blue team evaluates organizational security environments and defends them against red teams during cyber security testing engagements. The red teams play the role of attackers by identifying security vulnerabilities and launching attacks within a controlled environment. To illuminate an organization’s true security status, both teams must work together.

Having your defenses attacked in a controlled environment is a long-established military principle that allows you to better understand them. Typically, this concept is expressed in “red teaming,” where independent actors test a target organization’s systems or defenses for vulnerabilities.

However, red teams are just one aspect of the equation. In contrast, “blue teams” are tasked with protecting an organization’s systems and assets from both real and simulated attacks.

How Do Red Team vs. Blue Team Exercises Work?

For organizations seeking to gauge their defenses or prepare for red-team attacks, blue teams-conduct operational network security evaluations and provide mitigation tools and techniques.

Security personnel in an organization often make up blue teams, or that organization may select certain team members to create dedicated blue teams within a department. A “blue team” may also be an independent consultant hired for a specific engagement to audit the defenses of an organization.

It is possible for red teams to attempt a variety of techniques to launch successful attacks when an organization schedules red-team vs. blue-team drills. Digital techniques are not always limited to the digital sphere, and they are very open-ended.

In order to compromise the target’s security without being detected, red teams typically engage in digital reconnaissance to evaluate their defenses before deploying sophisticated attack techniques.

In most cases, this begins with assessing the current security posture of the organization. To detect and rebuff red team incursions, blue teams may combine human intelligence with technical tools.

Blue teams are expected to analyze log data, analyze traffic, perform audits, examine digital footprints and risk intelligence, and take other steps to prevent breaches—and then correct any vulnerabilities found.

Blue-Team Testing: Why It’s Important

Cybersecurity blue teams can assist in developing a comprehensive plan for organizational defense using the latest tools and techniques—a “blue team security stack,” to put it another way. It’s best to think of them as the most active contingent of a security team.

Some members of the security team specialize in tasks that are considered high-level or relevant enough for testing. High-level threats are the focus of blue teams, which strive for continuous improvement in detection and response.

Blue teams must be rigorously thorough in order to succeed; red teams can launch 99 unsuccessful attacks and still win on the 100th. The blue team must always be right. Blue teams must also be creative and able to adapt on the fly, in addition to paying attention to detail. As a result, many of the most effective red teamers (and black hat hackers) develop novel and difficult-to-predict attack methods.

In order to ensure a robust overall defense, organizations should evaluate both the work of the red and blue teams.