Think Like An Attacker: How a Red Team Operates

If you want to stop an attacker, you have to think like an attacker.

That's the general mindset of someone on the red team, a group of people within an organization responsible for, well, attacking it. Their goal is to act like the adversary and figure out different ways to break into a company so it can strengthen its defenses.

"The whole idea is, the red team is designed to make the blue team better," explains John Sawyer, associate director of services and red team leader at IOActive. It's the devil's advocate within an organization; the group responsible for finding gaps the business may not notice.