Color teaming 101

Cybersecurity is just like a planet in a huge spectrum of cyberspace. Like how we have various planets in space, similarly we have various teams in cyberspace. So, fasten your seat belts… Let’s take a ride into cyberspace and get started on understanding each team in brief.

Let’s commence with the infosec wheel:

Infosec wheel representing the different Security Teams

We can break down the infosec wheel of cyberspace into a two fold galaxy: the Security Operators (made of the blue, red and purple teams) and the Development Security Operations (mad eof the yellow, orange, green and white teams).

First galaxy – The Security Operators

Blue Team

The Defenders of the cyberspace. They specialize in defensing the companies most valuable and critical assets from cyber threats and attack vectors. They’re well-acquainted with companies’ security posture and strategies by reinforcing the perimeter walls so that no cyber criminals evade the defenses. Blue troops identify the weak points in the defense system by assessing the network and upgrade the defense strategies wherever necessary.

During any cyberattack, the blue team swiftly detects the breach or attack, then isolates the systems from the network and end the attack. Furthermore, they would also be re-structuring their strategy and prepare for recovery actions in some scenario. Where do we find these defenders of cyberspace? The blue team is often positioned in Security Operations Center (SOC). The SOCs are embraced with highly technical analysts working 24/7 year round to defend and strengthen their companies’ defenses.

In this cutting-edge era, Blue Team has evolved to function both proactively and reactively using the technology they can to now detect and countervail the advance threats.

Red team

The “Offensive security”, or “The challengers”, or even “The breakers” of the cyberspace. Red teamers are independent hackers, who intent to acquire illegal access to companies or individual assets. They assess the network, scan to discover possible exploit holes, and deploy various strategies and techniques to evade the defense mechanisms to keep the attack persistent. Red teams are mostly recruited by IT firms and organizations to test their network and understand the loopholes. This helps companies and their blue teams to improve their security posture.

Red teamers are often entitled with attacker duties. They are myriads of techniques from which they can evade detection mechanisms and intrude into companies’ network. Red teams are tasked with penetrating various systems and determining their security levels. A Red team’s tactics range from traditional phishing and social engineering attacks on employees to impersonation.

An ideal red team is both technical and creative, they are much conversant with the threat actor tactics, methods and procedures (TTP’s) Also, with latest attack tools, frameworks and advisories. Which helps them in their regular attackers’ duties.

Purple team

Purple team is a fusion of both BLUE TEAM and RED TEAM. Both the DEFENDERS and ATTACKERS work together in this team by ingesting defensive tactics with offensive results. Purple team helps to improve vulnerability detection, threat hunting and network monitoring by swift innovation of techniques to restrain and uncover new type of advisories and threats.

Purple team analyzes the results of any cyberattack performed by red team when blue team defenses are intact. Post the attack they study the attack pattern and forge new techniques to identify and prevent the simulated cyberattack’s future.

One downside of purple team is if both red team and blue team do exceptionally well on there tasks, there would be less scope for purple team to intervene.

Second galaxy – The Development Security Operations

Yellow team

“The Builders” of the cyberspace. They are well known for building and designing the software/tools for other security teams to work with ease. Furthermore, Yellow teamers also check on the internal vulnerabilities by running myriads of tests internally.

They try to compromise the network by using their workstation as an internal pentest to understand the flaws in internal security posture. They work closely with the IT department of the company to find the fix to vulnerabilities by upgrading the configurations and security architecture.

Yellow teamers are highly competent at building and structuring the security architecture.

Orange team

“The Educators” of the cyberspace. Orange teamers are the fusion of both red and yellow team. They are more inclined towards securing the network by identifying the bugs and eradicating them to enhance the security posture of the company.

They also facilitate interactions and educate the employees and for better security practices. The main objective of the orange teamers is to empower various teams by involving them in best security development trainings for maintaining better standards of security.

Orange teamers are esteemed for their cyber intelligence.

Green team

“The Guiders” of the cyberspace. The green teamers are conventionally involved in guiding both blue and yellow teams on the policies, regulations, and ethics for best security practices. They aspire to improve cybersecurity by enhancing the code quality, develop detections, incident response, audit libraries and data forensics defense capabilities.

They contemplate the security architecture, find the mistakes and revamp them at the earliest to stop any forthcoming attacks. They work closely with the blue and yellow teams to put the regulations in place, and build a strong defense system against rogue and malicious attack vectors.

Green teamers are prominent for regulating to build a sustainable security posture.

White team

“The Governors” of cyberspace. They govern and manage the security operations in a company by assessing rules of engagement, organizing teams, etc. White teamers also do risk management by enhancing plans, and monitor the progress.

They also act as a judge between blue team and red team by governing their work with set of rules. They ensure the competitions run smoothly between the teams. They’re also involved in metrics evaluation and logistics of the security operations.

White teamers play a crucial role in governance of the security operations in a company.

The above mentioned 2 galaxies play a significant role in cyberspace. They all work together towards improving the cybersecurity posture of company.