A Closer Look at White Cards: The Safety Nets of Red Team Engagements
In red team engagements, a “white card” is a tool used to facilitate the exercise, especially when simulating cyber attacks or security breaches. Red team engagements are designed to test the effectiveness of an organization’s security posture by emulating the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of real-world attackers. These engagements are highly controlled and follow strict rules of engagement to ensure safety and minimize the risk of unintended consequences.
The use of a “white card” plays a pivotal role in managing the complexities of a comprehensive security assessment. It acts as a strategic tool to bypass certain limitations, offering a way to simulate parts of the assessment that are impractical to test directly due to constraints. Here’s how it works:
- Bypassing Limitations: A white card might simulate specific scenarios, such as a helpdesk report of suspicious activity, or even bypass entire phases of an attacker’s methodology. This approach allows the assessment to adapt to real-world constraints while still providing valuable insights.
- Focusing on Key Areas: While using a white card may limit the opportunity to identify certain vulnerabilities, it enables the red team to focus on areas of particular interest to stakeholders, ensuring that the engagement is aligned with organizational priorities.
Key points to consider include:
- Tabletop Analysis: White cards facilitate a tabletop analysis for scenarios not directly tested, ensuring these aspects are still evaluated for their impact on the overall security posture.
- Resource Optimization: For example, phishing might be “white carded” to save time and resources, allowing the team to concentrate on detecting post-breach maneuvers.
The rationale behind this approach is rooted in the reality that mature organizations, especially those facing advanced threats, must often operate under the assumption that initial access by adversaries is inevitable. This mindset, known as “Assume Breach,” prioritizes efforts on detection and response to activities that occur after a breach has been achieved.
- Strategic Application: Organizations like Facebook have successfully integrated white cards into their red team exercises, demonstrating the effectiveness of this strategy in managing the scope of engagements and enhancing the depth of security testing.
In summary, strategically employing white cards during red team engagements allows for:
- A more focused and efficient use of time and resources.
- A thorough evaluation of the blue team’s response capabilities.
- An overall more comprehensive and impactful security assessment, tailored to the organization’s specific security objectives and priorities.
This method ensures a balanced and pragmatic approach to security testing, fostering a more resilient and responsive security posture within organizations.
