Top 10 Types of Cyber Security Teams Functions - Cyvoryn
Top 10 Types of Cyber Security Expert Teams
Introduction to a Cyber
Security Team
Cyber security team is a group of
professionals working together to ensure that an organization's computers,
networks, applications, cloud services, devices, data and users are protected
from cyber threats. Modern security is too large to be left to one man, and
this is why it's broken up into different parts and responsibilities are handed
out to people who have their own knowledge and skills. NIST has defined the
work of cybersecurity in terms of tasks, knowledge and skills, and work roles
in the NICE Framework, and real organizations may bundle multiple roles into
teams.
Cyber security teams may be
involved in surveillance of alerts, incident investigation, testing security,
managing vulnerabilities, threat analysis, application protection, cloud system
security, and security policy formulation. Some teams work to stop the attack
and defend, some act as attackers, and some combine preventing and attacking.
Below are the 10 team types for beginners that are essential to a more robust
security program, and how they support each other.
1. Red Team
A Red Team is a security team
authorized to run an attack, or attacks, against an organization to test the
organization's security, as if they were a legitimate attacker or attackers.
Red teamers enable approved systems and security controls to be tested by a
simulated adversary and do not have to wait for an actual criminal to find
weaknesses. A red team exercise is a simulation of exercise designed to assess
the effectiveness of the defenses against realistic attack behavior.
Characteristics: Red teams
are attacking, controlled, goal oriented, evidence-based, and permission based.
They work under clear rules of engagement and are bound by a clear scope of
work.
Knowledge: Red team
members should be familiar with networking, operating systems, web
applications, cloud security, penetration testing, vulnerability assessment,
social engineering awareness, scripting and security frameworks.
Problem-solving skills are also needed.
Tasks: A red team conducts
approved assessments, reviews the organization's approved attack surface,
discovers potential security vulnerabilities, challenges security controls,
reports vulnerabilities, and reports remediation suggestions. The aim is not to
harm. It's about finding real vulnerabilities in order for the defenders to
resolve them. Normal vulnerability scans may not show weaknesses that can be
seen during a red team exercise.
2. Blue Team
The defensive team in cyber
security is known as a Blue Team. Blue teams secure systems, track activity,
identify suspicious activity, investigate security alerts, respond to security
incidents and continually refine defensive controls. Typical blue team tasks
involve security monitoring, security detection, incident response, threat
hunting, and security hardening.
Characteristics: Blue
teams are defensive, monitoring oriented, response and always on. They
typically engage in security monitoring, endpoint protection, network
visibility, identity controls and incident response.
Abilities: Blue Team
professionals must be proficient in networking, operating systems, SIEM
platforms, endpoint detection, log analysis, threat intelligence, incident
response, vulnerability management and security architecture.
They are tasked with
security event monitoring, investigating alerts, detecting threats,
containment, enhancing security configurations, assisting recovery, log
analysis and control strengthening. A blue team can consist of SOC analysts,
incident responders, threat hunters, digital forensics specialists, and
security engineers. The reason why blue teams are needed is that prevention
doesn't always work.
3. Purple Team
A Purple Team is best defined as
a means to combine red and blue team activities. Instead of offensive and
defensive teams playing against each other, purple teaming: Off/Defensive teams
share findings and improve security together. Purple teaming translates
offensive findings and results into real-world enhancements in detection and
defense.
Collaborative, measurable,
improvement-oriented and based on continuous feedback are the features of
purple teaming. It integrates with attack simulation and detection and
response.
Competency: Purple team
members must be familiar with offensive and defensive security, threat
intelligence, security monitoring, detection engineering, penetration testing,
incident response and adversarial behavior.
The key responsibilities
of a purple team are to plan and execute simulated attacks, summarize what the
defenders did see, discuss what they did not see, add to the security rules,
validate defensive controls and assess progress. It's designed to make better
blue team defenses out of red team results. This can make the practice of
security testing more realistic, as each exercise generates learning
opportunities for detection, response and prevention.
4. SOC Team
A Security Operations Center
(SOC) is a group of security specialists who monitor and defend operations
around the clock. The organization's main hub for detection and analysis of
suspicious activity is the SOC teams. Some common operational SOC tasks are
monitoring, threat hunting, security-tool management and alert investigation.
Features: SOC teams are
alert-driven, monitoring-focused, process-driven and technology-oriented.
Typically leverage SIEM, EDR, network monitoring, threat intelligence, and
ticketing systems.
Knowledge: SOC analysts
should be familiar with the security logs, networking, operating systems,
authentication, malware indicators, threat detection, incident triage, and
security tools. Effective communication and documentation are also key.
The SOC responsibilities
include alert monitoring, prioritization, investigation of suspicious
activities, incident escalation, documentation, detection rule maintenance, and
incident response support. They can work in various levels of analysts, with
the more advanced analyst working on more complicated investigations. A robust
SOC translates into increased visibility and faster reporting, detection,
investigation and response to suspicious activity.
5. Incident Response Team
An Incident Response Team (IRT)
is a team dedicated to the response phase of an incident involving a confirmed
or suspected cyber security incident. When challenged with malware, compromise
of accounts, exposure of data, ransomware or another occurrence, the incident
response team helps manage the situation and re-establish secure operations of
the organization. According to NIST, incident response is a cybersecurity work
role that involves investigation, analysis, and response to cyber incidents.
There is an organized, time
sensitive, evidence-based and recovery-oriented incident response. Typical
teams have established response protocols that are documented.
Skills: Incident
responders must possess expertise in network security, endpoint investigation,
malware analysis, digital forensics, log analysis, containment, recovery and
communication.
Duties: They research
incidents, verify scope, determine affected systems, control threats, maintain
evidence of the event, eradicate malicious activity, assist in recovery, record
timelines, and make recommendations for improvement. They can collaborate with
management, legal, IT, outside experts or law enforcement as appropriate. The
aim is to do as little damage as possible, to restore normal functioning in a
safe manner and to learn from the incident.
6. Threat Intelligence Team
A Threat Intelligence Team
analyzes data on cyber threats, cyber attackers, cyber techniques, cyber
trends, and cyber risks that may impact an organization. They create an
understanding for security teams to what threat is relevant rather than every
alert. Threat intelligence teams gather and analyze adversary tools,
techniques, procedures, and new threats.
Features: Threat
intelligence is research, analytical, pro-active and information based. Sources
of intelligence can include internal security data, trusted external data,
industry data, or technical research.
Threat Research:
Professionals should have expertise in threat research, data analysis, defender
tactics, attacker tactics, security technologies and communication skills. A
familiarity with standard tactics, techniques and procedures is helpful.
Job duties: Threat
intelligence teams gather and analyze information, develop intelligence
reports, monitor the evolution of threats, monitor threat actors, assist with
detection engineering, brief security teams, and assist with prioritizing
defenses. Their results can be used for red teams to model realistic threats
and blue teams to enhance monitoring. Great intelligence transforms a ton of
security information into valuable decisions.
7. Vulnerability Management
Team
The Vulnerability Management Team
is a team that discovers, analyzes, prioritizes and monitors security
vulnerabilities throughout an organization's technology environment. A
vulnerability may be in the operating system, application, network device, cloud
services or configuration. Security work areas in NIST include vulnerability
assessment, which is a process used to discover vulnerabilities and the quality
of the defenses.
Characteristics: This team
is assessment-oriented, risk-based, organized and remediation oriented. It
isn't just a list of vulnerabilities, it also helps decide which are the ones
to be focused first.
Knowledge: Professionals
should have an understanding of vulnerability scanners, asset management,
operating systems, networks, applications, cloud platforms, risk assessment,
patch management and security standards.
Tasks: Assets discovery,
Vulnerability Assessment, important findings validation, Risk Priorities
assignment, Remediation Coordination, tracking of un-resolved issues and fix
verification. May collaborate closely with system administrator, developer,
security engineer and management. The number of vulnerabilities that can be
exploited is minimized and organizations can effectively allocate their
security resources.
8. Application Security Team
An Application Security Team, or
AppSec team, is dedicated to securing software, web pages, APIs and
applications throughout their entire lifecycle. Application security plays a
significant role in today's cyber defense, and applications often handle sensitive
information.
Features: AppSec is
development-oriented, preventive, testing-oriented, and collaborative. Security
teams collaborate with developers and engineering teams.
Knowledge: AppSec pros
should know things about the web, secure coding, APIs, authentication,
authorization, databases, cloud, source code review, and security testing.
Their duties: They audit
application designs for security requirements, analyze source code, conduct
authorized testing of applications, evaluate application dependability, check
authentication and access controls, assist developers in securing applications,
and encourage secure application development. They can also enable security
automation throughout the software development lifecycle. If AppSec teams can
locate the weaknesses early, it means that they can minimize the security
issues before the software reaches the users.
9. Cloud Security Team
A Cloud Security Team guards the
cloud infrastructure, applications, identities, data, networks, and services.
Cloud security is a major specialized area of organizations that increasingly
rely on cloud platforms.
Features: Cloud security
is nothing if it is not identity-centric, configuration-dependent, automated,
and deeply connected with infrastructure and development. Minor
misconfiguration can lead to big exposures.
Knowledge of Cloud
Platforms, Identity & Access Management, Networking, Encryption, Logs,
Containers, Infrastructure Security, Security Automation, and Cloud
Architecture are all areas of expertise that cloud security professionals
should know.
Duties: Their duties
include cloud configuration review, identity protection, access control
management, monitoring cloud activity, securing storage and workloads,
supporting encryption, evaluating cloud risks, investigating cloud incidents
and supporting secure cloud architectures in development teams. Least privilege
and robust authentication are also encouraged by cloud security teams. Their
work enables organizations to reap the advantages of cloud computing with a
minimum of security problems.
10. Security Architecture
& Engineering Team
The role of Security Architecture
and Engineering Teams is to create, maintain, and enhance the technical
security framework of an organization. Operational teams watch and react to
threats, and security engineers and architects create the systems and controls
that help provide protection in the future.
Characteristics: These are
design, technical, strategic and improvement-oriented teams. They relate
security technology to business needs.
Knowledge: They might have
knowledge about network security, identity management, endpoint protection,
cloud architecture, encryption, secure infrastructure, application security,
automation, and security standards.
Duties: They develop
security architectures, install and maintain security technologies, fortify
systems, enhance access control mechanisms, integrate security tools, advise on
secure network design, secure automate repetitive security tasks, and evaluate
new technologies for security threats. They collaborate with other teams within
SOC, incident response, application security, cloud security, and vulnerability
teams. Good engineering forms the basis for the other security teams to work.
Essential foundational skills
for members of the cyber security team.
While the goals are different for
each team, skills are important in the cyber security arena. Networking enables
professionals to learn about how systems communicate. They have the ability to
learn and investigate computers and servers when they understand the operating
system. Administration of Linux, Windows is useful for offensive/defensive.
Automation with programming and scripting can perform repetitive tasks and can
be used to understand applications. Log Analysis, Documentation, Communication
and Problem Solving are also important. Security pros should also know about
risk, privacy, access control, authentication, and incident management.
Learning is important and should be done practically using authorized labs,
virtual machines, capture-the-flag (CTF) environments and vulnerable systems.
Certifications can be useful in learning, but should be used in conjunction
with practice and understanding. First and foremost, ethics is important.
Through these processes, security teams need to show respect for authorization,
ensure the security of sensitive information, limit disruptions, keep proper records,
and report security weaknesses in an ethical manner. These habits empower
technical knowledge to become cyber security.
Key components of a Cyber
Security Team and how they collaborate
The best security practices don't
view these teams as separate units. Red teams are able to pinpoint
vulnerabilities, and blue teams can identify and respond to simulated attacks.
Purple teaming brings together those lessons and contributes to strengthening
the defensive controls. SOC teams monitor, incident response teams respond to
major incidents, and threat intel teams deliver threat intelligence on evolving
threats. Vulnerability teams focus on vulnerabilities and application/Cloud
teams protect critical technology environments. These features are made part of
a larger security program by security architects and engineers.
This is particularly relevant
when working in a team as cyber security is an ongoing process. NIST defines
teams as groups of people who work together to solve problems and challenges
that are too difficult for any single person to solve. Actually, there might be
multiple staff members in a small company that're doing various tasks, and
there may be dedicated departments in huge companies that work on different
things.
Summary
The Top 10 Types of Cyber
Security Teams exemplify the wide extent of today's cyber defense field. Red
Teams perform cyber-attacks, Blue Teams defend and respond to attacks. Purple
Teams are an integration of offensive testing and defensive enhancement. SOC
Teams continually monitor and Incident Response Teams handle security
incidents. Threat Intelligence Teams analyze evolving threats and assist
organizations to make informed decisions. Weaknesses are identified and
prioritized by Vulnerability Management Teams. Application Security Teams are
focused on protecting software and APIs, and Cloud Security Teams are focused
on protecting cloud environments. Lastly, Security Architecture and Engineering
Teams develop and enhance the technical security base.
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