Purple Teaming: What is it? How does it improve your security?

Purple Teaming: What is it? How does it improve your security?

• Need for new strategies to improve cyber security is increasing as threats evolve. Purple Teaming is one such methodology to strengthen the cyber security posture of your business.
• Purple Teaming involves all the features combined optimally from VAPT services to planning and applying remediation.
• Primarily, it challenges your security team’s assumptions on both offensive and defensive fronts.
• Lastly, it changes the way to approach the prevention and mitigation of an attack or breach on the organization.

What is Purple Teaming?

Purple Teaming is an amalgamation of all the functional qualities of Red (offensive) and Blue (defensive) cyber security teams. It involves all the vital processes including VAPT services, threat hunting, network monitoring, reporting all vulnerabilities, and applying defense protocols. Altogether, purple teaming recognizes offensive and defensive shortcomings and projects the improvement required for the future.

How Purple Teaming Improve Your Security?

You must have got a basic idea about the purple-team’s role in your security posture. Without any further ado, let us dive deeper into the subject and explore more on it…

Purple teaming is composed of the best of both Red and Blue Teams. Traditionally, the red team simulates real-world attacks using simple and sophisticated tactics to probe your cyber security. It launches the attack on the internal systems just like real hackers would do. Here, the blue team has the duty to identify the attack and put the security controls in place to stop it and clear the track. Furthermore, it analyses the attack later and takes note of the lessons learned from it. This helps the organization to avoid such incidents in the future.

Purple teaming is different from the usual Red Team and Blue Team approach in a lot of ways. Here, the methods of attack and defense are predetermined. Both the teams take interest in each other’s work. In each phase, whether it’s threat analysis, attack simulation, or VAPT services, the results are documented.

Three Main Components of Purple Teaming

Three primary components of Purple Teaming are the following:

1. Simulation

The red team attacks the network through numerous approaches and with a single goal in mind. The goal is to not get caught. This is the initial phase. Before the attack, the team sits and decides the scope and engagement of the attack. They choose whether to steal sensitive personal information or customer data. Thereafter, the red team goes through the attack with a predetermined objective to accomplish.

2. Secrecy

Most offensive cyber security practices are transparent to the staff. Whether it is security arrangements on your network or VAPT services carried out on your systems. On the contrary, the functioning of the Purple Team is kept secret from most of your employees. The red team will continuously make attempts to complete the overall objective. There are frequent assessments going on in the organization. Only the blue team along with some other executives are aware of these engagements.

3. Detection Testing

After identifying an activity, the blue team makes sure that it’s not a real attack. On confirmation by the red team, the blue team starts their job. Since the real hackers do not stop even when they are detected. So, does the read team. They keep on attacking the company’s systems. This gives the blue team to study and recognize the attacker mindset. Meanwhile, they also devise strategies to detect and block malicious activities.

Overall, the concept of purple teaming brings you the optimized combination of the best of both the worlds (red + blue team).

Benefits of Purple Teaming

Although the color combination of red and blue makes purple. But purple teaming does not actually involve technically merging these two teams. It is more about better and improved coordination and two teams working in tandem with each other.

The following are the key benefits of Purple Teaming:

1. Enhances Security Knowledge: The blue team works side by side with the red team. This gives them a better understanding of the core operation of attacks. As a result, they can devise new tactics and procedures for defense and effectively deploy them for better security. The defense team receives more knowledge on the real mindset and approach of the hackers. It helps them for preparing even more strongly to mitigate an attack.
2. Better Performance at the Same Budget: The combination and coordination of red and blue teams provide better outcomes for the overall security of systems and networks. As we are not adding anything to the infrastructure, hence there is no increase in the budget.
3. Streamline Security Improvements: The purple teaming methodology aligns with the interests of the red and blue teams. This collaboration gives rise to a new approach within the security industry to promote continuous cyber security improvement.
4. Gain Critical Insights: In general, purple teaming helps your security teams better understand the gaps in your security posture. It also removes all the adversarial components of security exercises.

Before You Go!

• Purple teaming promotes that the offensive and defensive wings of your security teams work together for better output.
• Services like vulnerability assessments and penetration testing (VAPT services) and other vital security procedures runs with better efficiency.
• Switching to the purple teaming methodology can be difficult without expert advice. RSK Cyber Security can help you smooth this transition.