For any organization, selecting the most appropriate security assessment to deter both internal and external cyber threats is a challenge. The rise of security breaches and cybersecurity budgets (expected to surpass $130 billion) are also causing concerns among organizations. Considering these aspects, organizations need to employ the best security assessment procedure.

Penetration Tests and Red Teaming are a couple of productive ways to ascertain your organization’s resilience. However, you should know the differences and possible application of these two procedures before choosing one—yes from both risk and budgetary perspectives.

Let’s start with the basics.

Penetration Testing

Standard PenTesting focuses on assessing systems, networks, mobile devices, and web apps to identify as many vulnerabilities as possible. Penetration testers, otherwise known as ethical hackers act like ‘would-be threat actors’ and approach with the same mission. The following are some common issues PenTesting tries to identify:

• When and how to exploit current security vulnerabilities
• Potential target for cybercriminals
• The business impact of particular vulnerabilities

Besides, PenTesting comes in three different forms:

• Black box testing: The testers have almost no initial knowledge of your infrastructure.
• Grey box testing: In this case, testers have some knowledge of your infrastructures like your network topology and types of servers. These two tests will give you an idea of how an external attacker might exploit your infrastructure.
• White box testing: The testers have in-depth knowledge of your process and security infrastructure. This test is used to identify the possibility of an internal threat i.e. a rogue employee.

At the end of all tests, penetration testers give you a report demonstrating all successful attacks with examples & screenshots along with recommendations for remediation. Note that the organization’s security team is almost always aware of the testing, pen tests don’t focus on stealth or evasion.

Red Teaming

Red Teaming is focused on target objectives. The main objective is to find out how the security team of an organization responds to various threats. Instead of finding as many vulnerabilities as possible, the red team will always try to gain access to sensitive information in stealth mode.

Red teams usually seat with you to define objectives before they start the actual procedure. As an organization, you can set rules of engagement, courses of action the testers are allowed to take, which are not recommended or which are prohibited.

Read team assessments look to:

• Nullify errors in places, people, and technologies.
• Give a more ‘true-to-life’ overview from the attackers’ perspective.

Red teaming puts more focus on remaining undercover. Hence, with existing defense strategies, organizations often don’t know that an attack is going on that involves device planting, social engineering, card cloning, tailgating, etc. in an attempt to bypass existing security measures.

The Difference in a Nutshell

If you have come this far, it is likely that you already understand the differences as well. Here it is in a brief. The main difference lies in the objective:

• PenTest aims to discover all possible loopholes while Red Teaming works in stealth mode intending to gain access to sensitive data.
• Red Team may discover & exploit weaknesses that a Penetration Testing team would find as well. However, the red team will simulate a ‘real attack’.
• Red Teaming involves a lot more people than a standard penetration test.

So, which one should you choose?

Ideally, both. First, you should start with a Penetration test and address all the identified weaknesses. Then conduct a Red Teaming exercise to confirm the effectiveness of the measures.

In this ever-evolving threat landscape, repeat the above mentioned annually or when any major changes occur in your software, infrastructure, supply chains, web presence, app management, etc.