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What Is Red Teaming and How It Differs from Pentesting

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  • November 12, 2025
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Red Teaming

Introduction

Every organisation with a cyber-security program must ask: how prepared am I for a real adversary? That is where red teaming enters the scene. Unlike a standard penetration test, red teaming pushes your organisation’s people, processes and technology under realistic conditions. In this article you will learn what red teaming is, how it compares with traditional penetration testing (pentesting), when to use each and how to integrate them into your security lifecycle. We’ll break down goals, scopes, methods, timelines and deliverables so you can pick the right approach based on your security maturity.

1 | Definition and Purpose

1.1 What is Penetration Testing?

A penetration test (or pentest) is a focused, time-boxed security assessment where testers identify and exploit vulnerabilities in systems, networks or applications. The objective is to:

• find exploitable weak points
• show how far an attacker might reach using those vulnerabilities
• provide a remediation roadmap.

Pentests usually have a defined scope (external network, web application, wireless, etc.), clear timeframe and known target systems.

1.2 What is Red Teaming?

Red teaming, in contrast, is a simulation of a real-life attack scenario where the tester (or red team) acts like an adversary with objectives — for example, gain access to sensitive data, disrupt operations or bypass detection. Key features:

• broader scope: may include technical, physical, human/social engineering vectors
• stealth: the defenders (blue team) may not know the exercise is underway
• objective-based: the mission defines “what” the attacker must achieve, not “how many vulnerabilities” to find
• tests not just the infrastructure but the organisation’s ability to detect, respond and recover.

2 | Key Differences Between the Two

Feature

Penetration Testing

Red Teaming

Goal

Identify as many vulnerabilities as possible within scope

Achieve a specific objective (e.g. data exfiltration) while remaining undetected

Scope

Narrower; defined systems or applications

Broad; may include people, processes, physical, technical controls

Awareness

Organisation usually knows testing is happening

Defender may be unaware; realistic adversary simulation

Duration

Shorter, often days to a few weeks

Longer, several weeks to months depending on complexity

Outcome

Report of findings and remediation recommendations

Report on how the attack progressed, how detection/response performed, what was achieved and where gaps remain

Use-case suited for

Organisations starting to test infrastructure hygiene

Organisations with mature security functions wanting to test detection, response and adversarial tactics

3 | When to Use Which Approach

3.1 Use Penetration Testing When:
• You are building or improving your security baseline and want to harden systems.
• You have limited budget or want compliance-driven verification of your infrastructure.
• You’ve not yet filled fundamental gaps like unpatched systems, weak configuration or missing MFA.

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3.2 Use Red Teaming When:
• Your environment is mature enough that you already run regular pentests and remediate issues.
• You want to test not only “can we be breached” but “how well do we detect, respond and recover”.
• You want to simulate a full kill chain, including social engineering, lateral movement, privilege escalation and data exfiltration.

4 | Typical Process & Deliverables

4.1 Penetration Testing Process
1. Planning & scoping – define target systems, rules of engagement.
2. Reconnaissance & vulnerability discovery.
3. Exploitation and proof-of-concept.
4. Reporting vulnerabilities, risk ratings, remediation advice.
5. Remediation verification optionally.

4.2 Red Teaming Process

1. Objective setting & rules of engagement – define business objective, accept risk, setboundaries.
2. Reconnaissance – open-source intelligence, physical, social engineering.
3. Initial entry – via one or more vectors.
4. Lateral movement & persistence – testing how far attackers can go.
5. Data access/exfiltration or other mission objective.
6. Clean-up and exit.
7. Debrief & reporting – timeline, TTPs (tactics, techniques, procedures), detection gaps, defence improvement recommendations.

(see penetration testing services United Kingdom).

5 | Benefits & Limitations

5.1 Benefits
• Penetration Testing improves the technical security posture, strengthens system hardening and supports compliance.
• Red Teaming reveals weaknesses in business controls, detection, incident response and overall security culture.
5.2 Limitations
• Penetration tests may not evaluate “how well you respond” or “what happens when a real adversary acts”. They may be noisy and easily detected.
• Red teaming is resource-intensive, longer and more expensive; it may also require high organisational readiness and mature security operations.

6 | How to Choose for Your Organisation

1. Assess security maturity: If you have gaps in infrastructure hygiene, start with pentesting.
2. Establish metrics: number of high-severity vulnerabilities, time to patch, detection latency.
3. If basic hygiene is solid and you want to challenge your detection and response, plan a red team engagement.
4. Ensure leadership buy-in: red teaming affects people, processes and operations not just technology.
5. After either engagement, use findings to improve your security lifecycle and repeat regularly.

7 | Example Scenarios

  1. Pentest example: A software company commissions a pentest of its externally-facing web application. The team finds outdated components, performs injection attacks and returns a report with severity rankings and remediation steps.
  2. Red team example: A retail organisation engages a red team whose goal is “steal customer data unnoticed”. The team performs open-source intelligence on employees, launches a phishing campaign, gains credentials, moves laterally, accesses data, remains undetected for days, and anonymises exfiltration. The internal security team did not detect the breach until after the engagement. The final report reveals detection gaps, delayed response and recommends operational improvements.

8 | Integration Into Security Strategy

• Run pentests annually or when major changes occur (new applications, cloud migration, major releases).
• After pentest remediation, schedule a red team exercise to test real-world readiness.
• Use red team findings to improve the SOC, incident response, monitoring, employee awareness and threat hunting.
• Combine both with continuous vulnerability management, risk-based prioritisation and security culture initiatives.

Conclusion

Understanding what red teaming is and how it differs from pentesting is essential for any organisation serious about cybersecurity. If you simply want to find and fix technical vulnerabilities then a pentest is a strong choice. If you are ready to test how your people, processes and technology hold up under real adversary simulations, then a red team engagement is the next level. Both play critical roles in a mature security program and should be used in tandem to build resilience.

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