Red Team vs. Blue Team: A tale of two strengths. Red is a group that proactively supports an organization to increase itself from the bottom up, continuously helping the organization to overcome existing obstacles and expand its problem-solving capability. Blue is a group which supports the organization from the top down, working to develop new strategies and shape the company for the future. In some cases, the two teams may work together, but in most cases the roles are reversed. With the ever-changing business environment, having both teams in place has proven to be a solid strategy.
The strengths of each type of support can vary greatly, with one group focusing on learning the right way to use technology, tools, processes, etc. while the other team focuses on developing the skills needed to test those tools and systems. Penetration Testing deals more with the actual testing of the application and client-side interactions, while the development team has more involvement in the coding and integration of that application, with the ability to change course when needed.
Red Team vs. Blue may also be a contest between two groups of people. While both groups have the ability to learn new technologies and integrate them into an organization, they do not always share the same strengths and weaknesses. This is because their goals and objectives may not dovetail well. Each team will likely want to test new technologies before others do, and may even be willing to risk spending more money on technologies that are risky or untested to gain that knowledge. At the same time, the two groups may be trying to develop their own software stack, using different technologies to build the platform.
Red Tean
In order to have a successful collaboration, the Red Team should be able to explain what they do and why they choose certain technologies over others. Likewise, Blue has to provide information about why they choose one technology over another. They may discuss the code of behavior, as well as what kind of budget the project has. By doing so, the teams can come up with an agreement on what is important and what kinds of technology that are most valuable to the project. The culture of each group should match well, especially if the projects being worked on are the same.
This will help establish a clear understanding on the way these teams should collaborate. Both sides need to be willing to spend resources on the technologies being tested. They should also be willing to accept changes, and not hesitate to implement whatever has been developed. If the technologies used are not going to be a burden, the team may find it easier to allow them to evolve as well.
The testers may find it helpful to create a pull request, asking that features that aren’t working well in the current release to be integrated into the upcoming release. Integrating new technologies used by other teams will be less painful, and more productive in the end. The team should also pay attention to the feedback that testers provide. By following these steps, Red Tean will help establish better communication channels and makes the integration process smoother for everyone involved.
Tags: red tean, automated, data, flaw hypothesis methodology, pci-dss