For the past ten years, I’ve been a member of, lead, or builder of Red Teams. I chose to continue in this career path so long because I believe that Red Teaming is one of the, if not the best, way to identify, assess, and ultimately reduce risk. The demonstration of risk through simulation outperforms all forms of theoretical security (where we review how “an attacker could.”). After witnessing Red Team testing where accompanying recommendations are implemented, I cannot be convinced otherwise. Where the risk is too high to guess, the removal of assumptions is necessary.
Regardless, we as Red Teamers continue to struggle with conveying our ideas to executive leadership audiences. I call this the “communication gateway” because traffic is traveling between one network “technical” and another “executive.” I’ve spent the last few years intentionally growing these skills and tackling this unique problem space. I’ve found we can only achieve this through storytelling, data, and up-leveled dialogue. I intend to speak to how this can be achieved here in the form of briefs.
My intended audience for these briefs are the following:
- Red Teamers (Operators, Managers, and Leads) who intend to up level their ability to convey results to executive leadership (VP+, CEO, CFO, CSO, or CISO)
- Executive Leadership (VP+, CEO, CFO, CSO, or CISO) who seek to better understand the outcomes of Red Teams that exist within their Security organization
- Executive Leadership that do no have a Red Team in their Security organization and are seeking to learn more about the benefits
My hope is to provide value to all these audiences so we can improve our ability to defend organizations from modern-day threats. It’s critical that we, as Red Teamers and Executives who intend to reduce true risk, challenge ourselves to improve how we communicate. I intend to bridge that gap by publishing content to connect our two worlds. Ignoring or misunderstanding this necessary function is no longer an option for organizations facing sophisticated adversaries. I welcome you to join me on this journey and look forward to shaping the conversation.