Red team cybersecurity employs skilled security professionals who think and act like attackers to identify vulnerabilities before malicious actors exploit them. These teams use advanced tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that mirror those of sophisticated threat actors: nation-state hackers, organized crime groups, and insider threats.

Unlike automated vulnerability scans or penetration tests with defined scopes, red teams operate with minimal restrictions to achieve strategic objectives, such as stealing sensitive data or disrupting operations. They chain together technical exploits, social engineering, and physical security bypasses to demonstrate real-world attack paths. This adversarial approach reveals how well your Blue Team (defenders) can detect, respond to, and contain actual breaches when they occur.

Red teams execute systematic adversarial campaigns following the MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Matrix methodology, spanning 14 tactical categories that cover the complete adversary lifecycle.

The process begins with Reconnaissance (TA0043), where teams gather victim identity information, network details, organizational structure, and host configurations through:

• Open-source intelligence gathering

• Active network scanning

• Target website analysis to build comprehensive attack profiles

Next comes Initial Access (TA0001), where teams establish footholds using:

• Targeted spearphishing campaigns

• Public-facing application exploitation

• Valid account compromise

• External remote service vulnerabilities

Teams then pursue Lateral Movement (TA0008) to expand access through alternate authentication methods, remote service exploitation, and session hijacking to identify high-value targets.

Finally, teams maintain Persistence and Command Control through account manipulation, scheduled task creation, system service modifications, and covert communication channels that enable long-term adversarial presence testing.

Organizations deploy three primary red team exercise categories, each targeting different attack surfaces and security capabilities. These include:

• Network Penetration Testing: Network-focused red teams examine security posture through systematic vulnerability assessment, network segmentation testing, and lateral movement simulation. Teams focus on privilege escalation, Active Directory exploitation, and persistent access establishment.

• Social Engineering Campaigns: Social engineering red teams test human-factor vulnerabilities through targeted phishing campaigns, pretexting operations, and information disclosure attempts.

• Physical Security Assessment: Physical red teams evaluate access controls, badge cloning vulnerabilities, tailgating opportunities, and unauthorized device placement capabilities. These exercises test facility security, data center protections, and physical asset protection measures.

Red team exercises validate security effectiveness across multiple domains simultaneously, reflecting modern enterprise threat landscape complexity:

• Email Security Validation: Teams employ the MITRE ATT&CK technique T1204 (User Execution) to test email security through phishing campaigns and payload execution scenarios

• Cloud Infrastructure Testing: Teams target cloud services and infrastructure vulnerabilities across multi-cloud environments

• Endpoint Protection Assessment: Teams validate endpoint detection through network discovery and data collection techniques that test monitoring capabilities

• Incident Response Evaluation: Exercises test organizational decision-making effectiveness, communication procedures, and containment capabilities under pressure

At Abnormal, our email security technology provides comprehensive protection that complements red team exercises by detecting advanced threats that traditional security tools often miss. To enhance your organization's security posture with red team-validated capabilities, book a demo.