Tag: redteaming

When considering cyber security, keeping on top of threats is important, and by no means a simple task. As attacks become increasingly sophisticated and harder to detect, our defences need to remain sharp and up-to-date. One approach to improving security that has been gaining popularity is called ‘Purple Teaming’.

In this post, we’ll break down why ‘Purple Teaming’ might be a valuable addition to your ongoing security initiatives.

What is Purple Teaming?

Purple Teaming is essentially about bringing together both sides of the cyber security arena: the Red Team and the Blue Team.

• Red Teams research and simulate the activities of real-world attackers, including hackers, by probing systems through penetration testing. Using the same tools and techniques as cybercriminals, they help uncover and highlight vulnerabilities before real attackers can exploit them.
• Blue Teams defend against the attacks of Red Team attack simulations and those of real external attackers. The Blue Team focuses on detecting and responding to threats, often using a SOC or a SEIM platform, and works on strengthening overall defences.

Purple Teaming is a security strategy combining the Red and Blue Teams to form a more holistic view of cyber security. When a Purple Team engagement is initiated, rather than working separately in an adversarial capacity, both the Red and Blue Teams will work together and learn from each other to create a stronger, more cohesive security posture.

What is the effectiveness of Purple Teaming?

One of Purple Teaming’s greatest strengths is that it is an arrangement of cooperation between both the defensive and offensive sides of cyber security. By combining the offence of a Red Team with the defence of a Blue Team, it is possible to develop a stronger and more in-depth security posture.

Within a Purple Team engagement, the Red Team will simulate attacks to identify vulnerabilities or gaps in security, while the Blue Team actively monitors and attempts to defend against any detected attacks. The Purple Team as a whole will use the information that is generated by the attacks, in addition to what is reported by the Red Team, to improve on existing defence strategies, and to develop more effective monitoring, detection, mitigation, and recovery techniques.

Normally Red and Blue Teams work separately, often in an adversarial capacity; however, when operating as a Purple Team, the Red and Blue Teams work together to share knowledge and insights that may otherwise be unknown or not considered. While Red Teams share their latest attack techniques, the Blue Teams offer tips or advice on how they monitor and prevent the attacks, which can allow the Red Team to further develop possible bypass techniques for the Blue Team to work on detecting. This creates a constant cycle of improvement for both teams, and identifies areas where there may be opportunities to upskill.

This type of cooperation not only helps in the identification of new or existing vulnerabilities, but also assists in the development of more effective incident response plans, playbooks, and guidelines, as well as the configuration of monitoring and detection tools, such as a SIEM dashboard or alerts. This level of active communication and improvement helps to stay on top of even the latest threats, and increase the speed of response for any incident that may arise.

Why You May Want to Consider Purple Teaming

Purple Teaming offers a unique combination of offensive and defensive strategies, which can provide numerous benefits across various aspects of your organisation’s cybersecurity efforts. Beyond just improving security posture, this collaborative approach fosters deeper learning, stronger relationships between teams, and greater resilience against evolving threats.

Here are some of the key outcomes you can expect from adopting Purple Teaming:

• Improved Incident Mitigation, Response, and Recovery:
  By looking at both sides of the cyber security coin, your Blue Team is more able to quickly identify threats and have the knowledge and experience on how to stop them in their tracks. By understanding not only the commonly used, but also the niche attacks, your teams will be better informed to implement procedures that effectively minimise any impact or expedite the required recovery following an incident.
• Enhanced Threat Intelligence:
  The dynamic nature of Purple Teaming ensures that both offensive and defensive perspectives are considered, helping your teams to keep up-to-date with the latest attack vectors and vulnerabilities, while patching security gaps in real time.
• Training and Development:
  Teamwork is important. Purple Teaming encourages ongoing learning and skill-sharing between Red and Blue Teams, fostering an environment where information, techniques, and tools are openly exchanged. This cooperation shifts the mindset from an adversarial ‘Us vs Them’ mentality, to that of a unified team working toward the common goal of strengthening security.

To stay ahead of cyber threats, organisations must adopt a proactive and cooperative approach. Purple Teaming offers the perfect blend of offensive and defensive strategies to enhance your security posture, improve response times, and foster collaboration among your cybersecurity teams. By embracing this methodology, your organisation can build a stronger defence while continuously learning and adapting to new threats. Ultimately, the strength of Purple Teaming lies in its ability to drive constant improvement, making it a valuable inclusion in any security strategy.

Detecting and defending against incoming attacks is a key component of a strong blue team, and SIEM capabilities play an important part of the technology stack to achieve this. But, with rapidly evolving cyber threats, it is important to adapt and innovate to stay ahead. Joint activities between red and blue teams, known as purple teaming, allows for easy knowledge sharing and collaboration to enhance defensive capabilities.

Is ‘red teaming’ the same as penetration testing?

Penetration testing is something a red team will do, but the goal of a penetration test is to find as many vulnerabilities as possible, while a red team attack simulation will try to breach the system, access, and exploit as much as possible without being detected. This kind of activity can often include attack points that wouldn’t usually be part of a penetration test, such as social engineering, but are still important for a blue team to detect and prevent.

So, what is ‘purple teaming’?

Purple team exercises have the red and blue teams working closely together, usually in a more focused engagement to provide continuous feedback and knowledge sharing between them. The red team will attempt to exploit vulnerabilities and challenge the blue team’s detection techniques using tools and tactics that are current and used by real-world adversaries. The feedback provided back to the blue team allows them to improve their SIEM capabilities by plugging gaps in detection and enhancing automated and manual response techniques. These activities can highlight additional improvements in overall security posture, training plans and help give organisations insight into future security strategies.

Purple team engagements can have varying timelines, with shorter, more focused engagements, to more long-term engagements where the red team simulates an advanced persistent threat (APT). Regardless of scope, what is important is that the teams are collaborating and working towards the same goal. Generally, the red and blue teams working within an organisation are fairly separate and siloed. Purple teaming gets these teams working together in a more collaborative nature to enhance security capabilities by providing realistic simulations, without impacting budget. Purple team activities can often save an organisation money, as blue teams are able to improve SIEM capabilities more effectively and efficiently than if they were trying to do it on their own.

Overall, these activities can help enhance an organisation’s security posture by opening lines of communication and breaking down barriers, nurturing a more collaborative and integrated culture. Knowledge sharing boosts SIEM capabilities, improving proactivity by closing detection gaps and enhancing automation, which can improve threat hunting and incident response, making security improvements faster and more efficient. Additionally, it allows for more forward-thinking security strategies and long term improvements.