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Who will attack you? Why? How?

Will your defenses hold?

Red Teaming

In today’s cybersecurity landscape, financial institutions and critical infrastructures must be prepared for escalating threats. Threat-led penetration testing (TLPT), mandated by the European Union's Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), and the TIBER-EU framework represent the forefront of proactive defenses. Here's what you need to know about these methodologies and their importance in fortifying digital resilience.

Threat Intelligence-Based Red Teaming: Realistic, Business-Aligned Security Testing

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Red Teaming provides a nuanced, context-driven evaluation of your organization's security posture by simulating real-world cyber attacks. Unlike standard penetration testing, our Red Team engagements closely mimic relevant threat actors and align with evolving cyber threats, ensuring a comprehensive assessment of your detection, response, and resilience capabilities.

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Why go for a Red Teaming Engagement?

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  • No Deactivated Security Measures: Tests are performed against your active defenses for realistic results.

  • No Informed Security Operations Centers (SOC): Challenge your SOC’s ability to detect and respond under real conditions.

  • Aligned with Critical Business Functions: Scenarios tailored to your organization's core processes and infrastructure.

  • TIBER and DORA Compliance: Fully aligned with national regulatory requirements for Threat-Led Penetration Testing (TLPT).

  • Holistic Evaluation: Test detection and response technology, personnel, and processes together.

  • In case of DORA TLPT: Once your organisation has been contacted, the exercise is mandatory.

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Pinpoint-Focused, Scenario-Based Testing

Our Red Teaming services focus on scenario-driven engagements that assess the business impact of successful attacks. By benchmarking your organization's security resilience against real threats, we provide actionable insights to strengthen critical defenses and improve overall readiness.

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End-to-End Digital Attacks

Applying Red Teaming, we come full circle by beginning with the essential questions: "What are the critical business functions? Who might target these and for what reasons? How?" In a controlled manner, this is precisely what we undertake: We simulate attacks, conduct assessments, and collaboratively work to significantly and measurably decrease the likelihood of a successful targeted attack.

Why Exploit Labs is Your Trusted Partner for TIBER and DORA TLPT Excellence:

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Differences: Penetration Testing / Red Teaming

These terms are often misunderstood, with Threat-Led Penetration Testing frequently mistaken for a Pentest, rather than a Red Team exercise, which only adds to the confusion.

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At Exploit Labs, we believe in aligning with established definitions from authoritative sources rather than creating our own. To help clarify, we offer this straightforward distinction:

Penetration Test:

Testing used in vulnerability analysis for vulnerability assessment, trying to reveal vulnerabilities of the system based on the information about the system gathered during the relevant evaluation activities.

NIST SP 800-160v1r1 / ISO/IEC 19989-3:2020

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Red Teaming

Today cyber red teams are often to be found in exercises and training sessions[...]. The main purpose is to test the blue teams that are supposed to defend the networks rather than to focus on vulnerability assessments.

NATO Cyber Red Teaming

While it can sometimes be challenging to draw a hard distinction between Red Teaming and Penetration Testing, we’ve outlined the following key differences based on their purpose, execution, and outcomes based on our experience:

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Scope

  • Penetration Testing: Targets specific systems, applications, or networks. Focuses on a predefined area to uncover technical vulnerabilities.
    Key Stakeholders: Application owners, IT department leads, information security officers.

  • Red Teaming: Broad in scope, simulating real-world attacks across multiple attack surfaces and vectors, including physical and human elements.
    Key Stakeholders: Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), legal teams, risk officers, incident response leads.

 

Duration

  • Penetration Testing: Typically completed within 1-4 weeks.

  • Red Teaming: Extended engagements potentially last 4-12 months or more to comprehensively assess resilience, depending on how many scenarios are chosen for execution.

 

Costs

  • Penetration Testing: Lower costs due to its narrower scope and smaller time investment.

  • Red Teaming: Higher costs, reflecting the complexity, expertise, and time required, including a significant invest in project management.

 

Focus

  • Penetration Testing: Aims to identify and exploit technical vulnerabilities for immediate remediation.

  • Red Teaming: Simulates realistic adversary behavior to assess an organization’s detection, response, and resilience.

 

Goals

  • Penetration Testing: Find and document vulnerabilities to be fixed.

  • Red Teaming: Evaluate the effectiveness of defense mechanisms, response protocols, and organizational preparedness.

 

Approach

  • Penetration Testing: Relies on tools and manual efforts to discover weaknesses in specific targets.

  • Red Teaming: Emulates real-world threat actor tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to mimic relevant threat actors like Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) or Organized Crime Groups (OCGs).

 

Methodology

  • Penetration Testing: Follows standardized guidelines like OWASP Testing Guides.

  • Red Teaming: Intelligence-driven and scenario-based, tailored to emulate specific threat actors.

 

Stakeholder Involvement

  • Penetration Testing: Primarily involves application owners, IT leads, and information security officers responsible for managing the systems under test.

  • Red Teaming: Involves cross-functional teams, including legal, risk officers, CISOs, and incident response teams, reflecting the broader impact of simulated adversary actions.

 

Deliverables

  • Penetration Testing: Produces a detailed technical report outlining vulnerabilities and actionable remediation steps.

  • Red Teaming: Offers an executive summary and a technical report focusing on resilience, detection gaps, and strategic recommendations, often leveraging tools like MITRE Attack Flow or various MITRE matrices to convey an attack narrative.

 

Detection Intent

  • Penetration Testing: Usually avoids stealth to uncover as many vulnerabilities as possible within the allotted time.

  • Red Teaming: Prioritizes stealth to simulate real-world conditions and assess the organization’s ability to detect and respond.

 

Tools Used

  • Penetration Testing: Leverages standard tools like Nessus, Burp Suite, and Metasploit.

  • Red Teaming: Employs advanced tools and techniques designed to replicate sophisticated adversaries.

 

Frequency

  • Penetration Testing: Conducted regularly, such as annually or semi-annually, to maintain a secure posture.

  • Red Teaming: Performed less frequently, typically when a comprehensive evaluation of resilience is required.

 

Team Composition

  • Penetration Testing: Performed by penetration testers specializing in vulnerability discovery, often testing solo or in teams of two.

  • Red Teaming: Conducted by red teams, often working alongside blue teams to simulate adversarial engagements and evaluate response capabilities. Teams involve multiple members to aknowledge vacation leaves, sickness, the need for more collaboration as of complex tasks.

 

Outcome

  • Penetration Testing: Improves the organization’s technical security posture by addressing identified vulnerabilities.

  • Red Teaming: Strengthens organizational readiness, enhances detection and response capabilities, and informs strategic improvements to defense mechanisms.

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TLPT is a simulation-based approach designed to mimic real-world cyberattacks by adversaries, enabling organizations to assess their readiness and resilience. Unlike traditional penetration testing, TLPT integrates threat intelligence to ensure scenarios reflect the latest tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by cybercriminals​​.

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The key aspects of TLPT include:

  • Realism: Leveraging threat intelligence to design realistic attack scenarios.

  • Collaboration: Involving multiple stakeholders, including red and blue teams.

  • Outcome-focused: Evaluating operational resilience under attack scenarios, not just technical vulnerabilities.

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Despite the name, a TLPT is not a standard penetration test.

The Threat Intelligence-Based Ethical Red Teaming (TIBER-EU) framework is a standardized methodology for testing resilience in critical sectors. Created by the European Central Bank (ECB), TIBER prioritizes cross-border and sector-wide assessments.

How TIBER Works:

  1. Scoping Phase: Define the testing scope, objectives, and rules of engagement.

  2. Threat Intelligence Phase: Tailor threat scenarios using up-to-date intelligence.

  3. Red Team Testing: Simulate adversarial behavior against live environments.

  4. Closure and Remediation: Analyze findings and implement corrective measures​​.

Unique Features of TIBER:

  • It ensures consistent testing across EU member states.

  • It focuses on systemic risks that can impact entire sectors.

 

The concept carries similarities to frameworks such as CBEST (UK), ICAST (Hong Kong), FEER (Singapore), AUTEST (Australia), CREST STAR.

What is Threat Intelligence-based Red Teaming (TIBER)?

TIBER and TLPT: What is the difference?

TLPT (Threat-Led Penetration Testing) is a regulated assessment introduced under the EU’s DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act). Initially designed for financial institutions, it evaluates resilience against advanced cyber threats and ensures compliance with the highest regulatory standards.

Unlike TIBER-EU, a voluntary framework, TLPT is legally mandated for specific financial institutions.

While national adaptations like TIBER-DE and TIBER-NL reflect varying implementations, the introduction of "TIBER 2.0" may standardize these differences in the future. TLPT builds on the TIBER framework but includes key distinctions, such as making Purple Team testing a mandatory component, whereas it remains optional under TIBER.

TIBER Procurement Guidelines

Wie wähle ich einen vertrauenswürdigen Partner aus? Zum Glück hat die Europäische Zentralbank einen Leitfaden veröffentlicht, wie Anbieter bewertet werden können. Bereit, einen Anbieter zu wählen, der die TIBER-EU-Standards erfüllt und übertrifft? Fordern Sie unser umfassendes Informationsmaterial an, um zu erfahren, wie wir uns an diesen Benchmarks orientieren und erstklassige Red Team-Services bieten. Sichern Sie die Zukunft Ihrer Organisation mit einem vertrauenswürdigen Partner – kontaktieren Sie uns noch heute!

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Not Every Red Team Assessment Needs to Be a Full-Blown TIBER or TLPT

While comprehensive frameworks like TIBER-EU and DORA TLPT offer valuable insights, not every red team assessment needs to be an exhaustive end-to-end operation involving external attacks, phishing, data exfiltration and having a regulator on board. In many cases, organizations can achieve significant results with a more focused approach, such as Assume Breach Penetration Testing.

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Assume Breach: A Threat-Informed First Step Towards Red Teaming


Assume Breach Penetration Testing starts where an attack is most likely to origin—after an initial foothold has been gained. This streamlined, scenario-driven approach leverages threat intelligence to simulate real-world attack paths and evaluate:

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  • Business impact: Assess the severity of potential consequences if a breach occurs.

  • Defense performance: Identify where defense mechanisms fail and how quickly a threat can escalate.

  • Threat actor alignment: Map the identified attack paths against threat actors most relevant to your organization.

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Why Choose Assume Breach?

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  1. Targeted Value: It avoids unnecessary scope creep while focusing on the core value—highlighting critical vulnerabilities and potential disruptions. Get the most value for your budget.

  2. Real-World Focus: By simulating realistic scenarios, it offers actionable insights into how attackers will exploit your systems.

  3. Practical Insights Without Regulatory Complexity: Unlike TLPT or TIBER, this approach delivers critical findings without the added layer of regulatory involvement.

 

Assume Breach is the ideal first step for organizations seeking a threat-informed engagement. It provides a clear picture of how well your defenses hold up under attack and actionable recommendations to strengthen your security posture.

If you’re ready to evaluate your defenses, benchmark against relevant threats, and uncover practical steps to enhance your resilience, contact us today to learn more.

Invite us to comprimose your organisation
(and get a report)

Red teaming is an invaluable service for businesses looking to fortify their cybersecurity defenses. Think of it as a realistic simulation of a sophisticated cyberattack—where skilled ethical hackers attempt to breach your organization’s security. The key difference? Instead of a ransom note or public embarrassment due to data breaches, you receive a detailed presentation and report.

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By engaging in red teaming, businesses gain the advantage of preparing for real-world cyber threats without the real-world consequences, turning potential risks into opportunities for resilience.

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