As cyber threats continue to evolve and become more sophisticated, it is imperative for organizations to adopt a proactive approach to cyber security. One of the most effective ways to do this is through automated penetration testing and red teaming. We analyzed Gartner’s recent “Hype Cycle for Security Operations 2022″ which studies Automated Red Teaming.
According to Gartner, “Penetration testing and red teaming engagements play an important role in an organizations’ capabilities to validate their exposure and attack surface.”
1. The Need for More Frequent and Reliable Testing
Traditional manual penetration testing and red teaming activities are often time-consuming and often lead to inconsistent results. Automated penetration testing and red teaming can help address these issues by providing more frequent and reliable testing.
Automated Red Teaming & Penetration Testing platform like FireCompass can run tests more frequently, helping to identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses that are often missed during manual testing. This can help organizations stay ahead of potential threats and reduce the risk of falling a victim to a successful cyber attack.
Gartner: “Frequent and consistent testing of infrastructure, applications and the defenses of an organization helps find and mitigate weaknesses, gaps and operational deficiencies faster.”
Key Takeaways: Conduct frequent and reliable testing to identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses more quickly and efficiently.
2. Lower Operational Cost
Manual penetration testing and red teaming is expensive as they often require a significant amount of time and resources. Automated testing tools, on the other hand, can help reduce costs by streamlining the testing process and reducing the need for human intervention.
Automated tools can also help identify and prioritize vulnerabilities more effectively, allowing organizations to focus their resources on addressing the most critical issues first.
Gartner: “Automated penetration testing… can reduce external costs and avoid paying expensive services only to discover “low- hanging” fruits.”
Key takeaways: Reduce costs by streamlining the testing process and identifying vulnerabilities more effectively.
3. Automation – Save Time, Increase Efficiency
By automating routine tasks, organizations can focus their efforts on more strategic activities, such as identifying and addressing critical vulnerabilities.
Automated tools can also help organizations identify vulnerabilities that may have been missed during manual testing, providing a more comprehensive view of the organization’s security posture.
Gartner: “Recent progress in automation promises to almost fully automate ad hoc network/infrastructure penetration and/or application pentests and some of the red team activities.”
Key takeaways: Save Time & Increase Efficiency with Automated Red Teaming & Penetration testing.
4. Red Teaming Made Available To Organizations of All Sizes
Red teaming has traditionally been the purview of mature organizations with the expertise, processes, and tools to benefit from these activities. However, red teaming can be beneficial for organizations of all sizes, as it provides a more realistic view of the organization’s security posture. The automation is bringing it within reach for organizations of all sizes.
Gartner: “Human-led red teaming programs are difficult to initiate because they require a specific set of expertise, processes and tools that can be expensive to develop. Adding automation to the red team toolmix can help initiate such a program.”
Key takeaways: Red teaming for organizations of all sizes to identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses faster without paying expensive services.
5. Improved Risk Management – All Of The Assets – All Of The Time
While attackers are attacking all the assets all the time, organizations are testing some of the assets, some of the time. Automated penetration testing and red teaming can help organizations improve their risk management by providing a more comprehensive view of their security posture – all of the Assets – all of the time.
FireCompass as a platform also helps organizations to prioritize vulnerabilities and weaknesses so that organizations can focus their efforts and allocate resources more effectively.
Gartner: “Many organizations only test when required by compliance requirement, on an annual or ad hoc basis. Automation leads to more frequent and reliable assessments, reducing the associated dwell time”
Key takeaways: Improve risk management efforts with a more comprehensive view of your security posture.
Selecting The Right Platform
Automated penetration testing and red teaming can provide significant benefits for organizations of all sizes. By improving testing frequency and reliability, reducing costs and increasing efficiency, providing comprehensive automation, offering scalable red teaming, and improving risk management, organizations can stay ahead of potential threats and minimize the impact of any breaches that do occur.
However, not all automated red teaming and penetration testing platforms are created equal. Gartner suggests to “Do POCs and other due diligence to confirm that the solutions being considered are fit for purpose and will meet the buyer’s requirements.”
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About FireCompass:
FireCompass is a SaaS platform for Continuous Automated Pen Testing, Red Teaming and External Attack Surface Management (EASM). FireCompass continuously indexes and monitors the deep, dark and surface webs using nation-state grade reconnaissance techniques. The platform automatically discovers an organization’s digital attack surface and launches multi-stage safe attacks, mimicking a real attacker, to help identify breach and attack paths that are otherwise missed out by conventional tools.
Feel free to get in touch with us to get a better view of your attack surface.
