Red Team Assessment

Red team assessment is crucial to test the impeccability of any cybersecurity infrastructure. Also known as red teaming, it is a more sophisticated, advanced, and targeted form of vulnerability assessment &penetration testing (VAPT). A company, irrespective of industry and nature of business, can determine if their cyber security infrastructure is fail safe only when a real attack can be successfully thwarted.

Red Team Assessment is a Simulated Real-World Cyber Attack

Red team is a group of ethical hackers and cyber security specialists. This team initiates a multipronged attack on a company’s networks, systems, people, and other types of infrastructure & resources including physical infrastructure and facilities. The entire multifaceted attack is conducted surreptitiously to avoid all kinds of detection and disruption in the targeted systems. Such a comprehensive attack exposes all the weaknesses of a cyber-security infrastructure, following which a company can plan and initiate corrective measures.

Objectives of Red Team Assessment

• Thorough testing of all cyber security programs and measures in place against actual attacks.
• Detecting every flaw in the real and virtual infrastructures & resources of a company.
• Identifying vulnerabilities in manual and automated threat detection & response engagements.
• Understanding actual challenges through the emulation of real-world tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).
• Mitigating all complex vulnerabilities in the cyber security infrastructure & strategy based on the red team assessment report.

Purview of Red Team Assessment

Red team assessment focuses on all possible vulnerabilities. Flaws in cyber security can be classified into three broad categories: information technology, human resources, and physical infrastructure. Hackers can target any or all three during real cyber attacks.

1. Information Technology | Technical Assets

This includes the entire IT infrastructure of a company: servers, networks, routers, switches, workstations, websites, mobile applications, software & hardware, and internet based communications.

2. Human Resources | Social Assets

Hackers can target the employees of a company. This includes everyone accessing the nontechnical and technological infrastructure of the organization. Cyber attacks can also target second and third parties, including vendors or service providers, clients, and temporary associates or collaborators.

3. Non-IT Infrastructure | Physical Assets

Hackers can target physical assets to facilitate cyber attacks. Gaining physical access to office premises, factory, warehouse, store, server room, datacenter, or any other physical facility can facilitate the entire operation of hackers.

Features of Nexsus Red Team Assessment

Nexsus red team assessment emulates all activities that real hackers would initiate and attempt to complete during an actual cyber attack. We simulate an unrestrained secret operation using proprietary and open source intelligence to carry out initial reconnaissance, so we can find the flaws in a cyber security apparatus for a probable compromise.

One or more vulnerabilities enable our red team to gain access, following which we establish and escalate our presence. The red team then proceeds to carry out internal reconnaissance, lateral movement, and sustains the presence, while simultaneously gaining more access to connected systems and all available data.

Eventually, red team assessment simulates the ultimate objective, which could be data or financial theft, stealing trade secrets, neutralizing the security systems, impairing or halting operations, endangering the safety of the targeted premises, and compromising the staff as well as customers or clients in an intended manner.

Customized Red Team Assessment by Nexsus Cyber Solution 

The only way a company can know if its systems are immune to a breach is when a real cyber attack happens. Nothing but a real-world simulation can expose the vulnerabilities. Red team assessment by Nexsus Cyber Solution can prove with evidence whether or not the detection and response capabilities of a company are effective.

Vulnerability assessment & penetration testing is the beginning. Red teaming subjects cyber security practices to real and greater challenges. Red team assessment is a considerably more potent attempt at breaching networks and systems, invading the infrastructure and effectively compromising the interests of a company.

To further enhance the utility and relevance of red team assessment for a company, given its nature of business or area of operation, Nexsus Cyber Solution offers a fully customized approach. The tactics, techniques and procedures used by actual hackers in the real world are based on various specific factors. These factors are distinct for industries, businesses and types of operations.

Advantages of Customized Red Team Assessment

• The objectives are specifically relevant for an industry and the type of business. Banks or financial institutions and healthcare facilities such as hospitals and medical research institutes deal in confidential data, sensitive information about people, and there could be proprietary secrets too. These specifics must be factored in to understand potential objectives of hackers and the different approaches they may resort to.
• Understanding the objective enables a red team to decide a relevant and effective simulation of a real-world cyber attack. An objective could be to access trade secrets, database servers, or personally identifiable information (PII). The objectives pave the way to gauge all kinds of intelligence based on assessment of adversaries, machines, and victims, etc.
• Threat intelligence, attacker context, victim behavior, attacker telemetry and proliferation, and indicators of compromise, among others, have to be assessed based on customization. Every industry or business does not have the same vulnerability. The risks are obviously dissimilar. Thus, only a bespoke approach can emulate a real attack.

Outcome of Nexsus Red Team Assessment

• Detection of all flaws in your cyber security infrastructure.
• Identification of lapses in automated and manual responses to a cyber attack.
• A holistic assessment report with recommended remedial actions.
• Adherence to relevant compliance standards and applicable local laws.
• Protection and safeguarding of all critical assets, both real and virtual.
• Successful prevention of a real cyber attack in the foreseeable future.
• Immediate and sustained improvement of cyber security infrastructure and processes.