Offensive security (OffSec) forms a foundation for proactive cybersecurity, enabling your team to find and fix vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them. But running an effective OffSec program requires mastering a vast array of methods, tactics, and tools. To help you enhance your offensive security program, here's a guide to OffSec essentials. Here we'll walk you through everything from the phases of an offensive security test to how to set up and optimize your own program, as well as where to find external support for your internal team.
Offensive security programs simulate cybersecurity attacks on systems to identify vulnerabilities. This strategy aims to preemptively discover weaknesses before attackers can exploit them, while also uncovering hidden vulnerabilities attackers are already using. OffSec program testing generates reports that identify vulnerabilities, rank them according to severity, and recommend remediations.
Offensive security programs may test all layers of a digital network, from human users to apps, infrastructure, and physical devices and security. OffSec programs deploy both automated methods such as vulnerability scanning and manual methods such as penetration testing (pentesting) and red teaming. These methods employ a multitude of tools, tactics, and techniques to produce actionable insights on remediating vulnerabilities.
A multilayer offensive security testing program improves your company's security posture by providing comprehensive coverage for the full range of potential attacks. Securing only one layer, such as networks, may leave other layers such as applications open to attack. By systematically securing all layers of your digital infrastructure and their various attack surfaces, you can greatly reduce opportunities for attackers to penetrate your defenses.
Hardening your security by protecting all your layers yields important business benefits as well. Deploying offensive security can reduce the risk of network disruption and downtime, help you achieve regulatory compliance, and protect your company reputation from the fallout of data breaches.
OffSec programs follow a systematic sequence to discover security vulnerabilities and produce actionable reports:
Some offensive security tests focus on automated scanning of vulnerabilities. Others concentrate on using information gathered through automated scans to manually simulate attacks.
Offensive security programs deploy various tactics to analyze vulnerabilities in target systems. The leading testing methods include:
Vulnerability assessment is a mainly automated methodology, whereas pentesting and red teaming are mainly manual.
Vulnerability assessment employs vulnerability scanning software to detect known vulnerabilities or learn how systems defend against basic attacks. This emulates the way hackers use botnets to probe vulnerabilities and prepare attacks. OffSec programs use vulnerability scanners to identify attack surfaces and their vulnerabilities and prioritize their severity for remediation. Information gained from vulnerability assessments can provide valuable information for pentests and red team tests.
Penetration testing simulates attacks on a target's entire attack surface or a specific attack vector, such as network firewalls, cloud-based apps, or APIs. Pentesting teams map attack surfaces and model attacker tactics, techniques, and procedures guided by standard frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK and the OWASP Top 10. This yields information for planning remediations corresponding to identified vulnerabilities. For example, Cobalt's penetration as a service (PTaaS) platform allows teams to quickly schedule comprehensive, agile pentests by tapping into a pool of expert talent and deploying tools such as Cobalt DAST, which yields runtime vulnerabilities in web applications and APIs across all of a target's domains and subdomains. Pentests are conducted with the target's advance knowledge.
In contrast to pentests, red team tests simulate realistic attacks without giving the target advance notification how or when the attack will occur. Emulating real attackers, red teams focus on target weak points and high-value assets, rather than testing a comprehensive range of vulnerabilities like pentesting. Imitating advanced persistent threats, red tests may spend months infiltrating systems before launching their main offensives.
OffSec teams use an arsenal of software tools to automate and streamline the phases of offensive security tests and perform specialized tests. Categories of tools include:
These types of tools assist offensive security teams in conducting tests and reporting results.
How do you go about welding the various offensive security tactics and tools into an effective OffSec program? The path to a mature offensive security program can be divided into five steps:
The first step is to define the business and security goals of your offensive security program. For instance, are you trying to:
Establishing your goals positions you to define the scope of your program. For example, will you be doing vulnerability scanning or using pentesting or red teaming?
The next step is to organize your OffSec team. This task includes:
Your team structure and division of duties should reflect the objectives you laid out in the first step, with team members assigned to carry out your intended tasks.
Your team may include external partners as well as internal members. Consider which tasks it would be efficient for you to handle in-house and which would be better outsourced. Generally, new OffSec teams will find automated scanning a more manageable starting point than manual testing methods, which typically require an experienced pentesting or red teaming partner.
One of your team's initial goals and ongoing challenges is developing and maintaining standard operating procedures to guide your offensive security testing. You should document procedures for each phase of the OffSec process, from reconnaissance to reporting. As your team matures and you refine your procedures, be sure to update your SOPs. A good way to do this is to assign your newest team members responsibility for updating your SOP manual, which serves to train them as well as to keep your procedures current with your practices.
To execute your OffSec testing procedures, you'll need to procure the appropriate tools and services. These may include operating systems, vulnerability scanners, pentesting platforms, adversary emulation platforms, and command and control frameworks. Select tools that correspond to your objectives and procedures.
To ensure that you reap the benefits of your offensive security program, it's critical to track your performance and make adjustments for optimization. A key to doing this is tracking OffSec key performance indicators. For example, you might track metrics such as number of vulnerabilities found in different categories, percentage of serious findings, and average time to fix after discovery. Set performance goals, track your results, and make adjustments to bring your performance in closer alignment with your target numbers.
Whether you've got an offensive security program in place or you're just starting one, the complexity of offensive techniques makes it a best practice to work with experienced OffSec specialists who can guide your internal security team through the intricacies of vulnerability assessment, pentesting, and red teaming. Cobalt's pentesting as a service (PTaaS) platform enables your team to instantly connect with our elite team of 450+ OffSec experts and rapidly schedule pentests or red teaming tests. Our deep talent pool lets us match your testing requirements to experience testers with the precise skills you require. Our on-demand platform lets you set up and deploy customized tests within as little as 24 hours, not months like most testing services. Contact our offensive security experts today to discuss how we can help you power up your OffSec program.