Red Team Assessment
A red team assessment is a comprehensive security assessment that simulates real-world attacks on an organization’s security infrastructure. Unlike conventional vulnerability scanning or penetration testing, which focuses on specific vulnerabilities, a red team assessment takes a holistic approach, aiming to compromise the organization’s security posture.
The red team comprises highly skilled security professionals who take on the role of attackers to assess the effectiveness of an organization’s defensive measures. They aim to uncover potential security gaps, demonstrating how attackers combine unrelated exploits to access sensitive data and critical assets. Following the assessment, the team provides recommendations and plans to bolster the organization’s security posture, ensuring it remains resilient in the face of evolving threats.
Red Team Activities
01. APPLICATION SECURITY TESTING
In this exercise, the red team attempts to identify vulnerabilities in the organization’s web applications and software. Techniques employed may include injection attacks, cross-site scripting, or file inclusion attacks.
02. SOCIAL ENGINEERING
In this exercise, the red team manipulates employees or contractors to reveal sensitive information. They also perform actions that may compromise security, using phishing, pretexting, or baiting techniques.
03. NETWORK PENETRATION TESTING
In this exercise, the red team attempts unauthorized access to the organization’s network infrastructure. Techniques involved may include port scanning, vulnerability scanning, or exploiting software vulnerabilities.
Importance of Red Team Assessment
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Effective Risk Assessment: According to recent statistics, 47% of organizations believe red teaming is a best practice for risk assessment. This approach helps them uncover unknown vulnerabilities and weaknesses in their security measures, which is crucial for protecting their valuable assets and sensitive information.
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Data Protection: Red team assessment evaluates how well data protection measures work, especially for sensitive information like personally identifiable information (PII) and intellectual property (IP). This ensures that critical data remains safe from potential threats.
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Real-World Simulation: Red teaming simulates real-world attack tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that actual threat actors might use. This helps organizations prepare for and defend against realistic threats rather than hypothetical scenarios.
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Strengthening Security Defenses: By leveraging insights into the latest attack methods and vectors, red team assessment aims to expose vulnerabilities in security defenses. This proactive approach helps organizations strengthen security measures to protect against evolving threats.
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Identification of Vulnerabilities: Red team assessment identifies known and unknown vulnerabilities, along with misconfigurations in applications and network infrastructure. This ensures that potential weaknesses are promptly addressed to reduce the risk of exploitation.
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Performing Reconnaissance Activities: Conducting reconnaissance activities to assess the security of unprotected system data helps organizations identify information that could be valuable to potential attackers and take appropriate measures to prevent security breaches.
Why Choose Accorian?
Accorian is a leading cybersecurity firm, distinguished by its CREST accreditation, renowned for unparalleled expertise. Our team comprises technology and cybersecurity leaders, ensuring proficiency that exceeds industry standards. What truly distinguishes us is our commitment to tailor-made solutions. Each red team assessment, backed by our remarkable 100% success rate, is meticulously customized to meet an organization’s unique needs, ensuring relevance and effectiveness in today’s business landscape.
Red Team Methodology
Adversary Modelling
Accorian works closely with the organization to comprehensively understand the threat adversary profile modeled within this red team engagement. This phase is crucial to align the red team’s actions with the specific threat levels and categories an organization aims to safeguard against.
As part of this modeling process, Accorian assesses factors such as the threat actor’s knowledge, access, resources, capabilities, and intent, which must be simulated during this engagement. Based on our experience, establishing these metrics at the outset of a red team engagement leads to a more precise and insightful assessment.
Intelligence Lifecycle
During this phase, we engage in a continuous execution of the various stages within the traditional intelligence lifecycle. We aim to gather pertinent information about the targets identified for the red team engagement.
Once we’ve collected this information, we subject it to a rigorous analysis and evaluation process. This process allows us to derive actionable intelligence that can effectively map potential attack pathways, identify vulnerabilities unique to the identified targets that could be exploited, and estimate the skill sets, resources, and capabilities necessary to execute a successful attack strategy.
Targeting
Accorian employs the “D5” engagement methodology during the attack planning phase to determine the tactics needed to achieve the objectives. This tactical analysis involves various methods and approaches. Additionally, Accorian uses a range of brainstorming and analytical techniques to enhance the overall attack plan.
Attack Planning
Execution
Accorian initiates implementing the overall attack plan to support the mission objectives. The attack is executed with full intensity and is sustained until the goals are successfully met. Whether a campaign succeeds or fails, the overall plan is regularly updated, revised, and modified throughout this process. This iterative process continues until the mission objectives are achieved, ensuring our approach remains adaptable and resilient.
Attack Scenario Examples
COMPROMISE OF
ACTIVE DIRECTORY
Activity: Conduct a targeted cyberattack against employees to gain unauthorized access to their computer systems. Proceed to perform lateral movement within the organization’s network and identify domain or enterprise administrators, aiming to compromise their accounts.
Objective
Evaluate the organization’s defenses concerning Active Directory (AD) security.
Assess the capability of the security team to detect and respond to a multi-stage cyberattack.
Demonstrate the effectiveness of the organization’s incident response procedures.
Attack Vector: Internal
C-LEVEL EXECUTIVE
EMAIL ACCESS
Activity: Simulate a phishing campaign to compromise the email accounts of C-level executives. Additionally, crawl the dark web to acquire compromised credentials.
Objective
Assess the effectiveness of cybersecurity awareness training provided to employees, particularly regarding phishing attacks.
Investigate the presence of the organization’s data on the dark web.
Evaluate the capability of the security team to detect and respond to a multi-stage cyberattack, starting with a phishing attempt.
Attack Vector: External
EXFILTRATION OF
SENSITIVE DATA
Activity: Conduct a cyberattack to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data and exfiltrate information covertly.
Objective
Assess the ability of the security team to detect a multistage cyberattack.
Determine the extent to which a persistent attacker could compromise confidential information.
Prove the effectiveness of incident response procedures.
Attack Vector: Internal/External
BACKDOORING APPLICATION ON
PRODUCTION/ STAGING
Activity: Install a backdoor that will provide an attacker with continued access to the system or other application resources.
Objective
Evaluate the security team’s capability to identify and respond to a multi-stage cyberattack involving backdooring.
Demonstrate the effectiveness of the organization’s incident response procedures in detecting and mitigating threats involving backdoors.
Attack Vector: Internal
GAINING ACCESS TO
SECURE CODE
Activity: Execute a cyberattack to gain unauthorized access to the source code of applications and covertly exfiltrate this information.
Objective
Assess the security team’s capacity to detect and respond to a multi-stage cyberattack targeting source code.
Determine how much a persistent attacker could compromise confidential information through source code access.
Demonstrate the effectiveness of the organization’s incident response procedures in detecting and mitigating source code breaches.
Attack Vector: Internal
Key Differentiators
Our test plans aim to cover 200-400 checks for network penetration tests and 400-800 reviews for application penetration tests
Our time-tested and proven penetration testing methodology is built using OSSTMM, OWASP, NIST, and PTES standards
End-to-end project management for assessments with comprehensive and detailed reporting through our platform
We leverage our automated scanners and tools along with our custom scripts to conduct thorough assessments and ensure comprehensive coverage
Combined experience of working with 500+ clients on 1200+ penetration tests, detection of 25000+ vulnerabilities, and 100% success rate in red team engagements
A Trusted Vulnerability Assessor and an
Approved Scan Vendor (ASV) for organizations in sectors such as banking, financial services, credit unions, eCommerce, and SaaS that need to adhere to PCI DSS requirements
Ready to Start?
Drop your CVs to joinourteam@accorian.com
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