Red Team Redemption: A Structured Comparison of Open-Source Tools for Adversary Emulation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Landauer, Max, Mayer, Klaus, Skopik, Florian, Wurzenberger, Markus, Kern, Manuel
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Landauer, Max
Mayer, Klaus
Skopik, Florian
Wurzenberger, Markus
Kern, Manuel
author_facet Landauer, Max
Mayer, Klaus
Skopik, Florian
Wurzenberger, Markus
Kern, Manuel
contents Red teams simulate adversaries and conduct sophisticated attacks against defenders without informing them about used tactics in advance. These interactive cyber exercises are highly beneficial to assess and improve the security posture of organizations, detect vulnerabilities, and train employees. Unfortunately, they are also time-consuming and expensive, which often limits their scale or prevents them entirely. To address this situation, adversary emulation tools partially automate attacker behavior and enable fast, continuous, and repeatable security testing even when involved personnel lacks red teaming experience. Currently, a wide range of tools designed for specific use-cases and requirements exist. To obtain an overview of these solutions, we conduct a review and structured comparison of nine open-source adversary emulation tools. To this end, we assemble a questionnaire with 80 questions addressing relevant aspects, including setup, support, documentation, usability, and technical features. In addition, we conduct a user study with domain experts to investigate the importance of these aspects for distinct user roles. Based on the evaluation and user feedback, we rank the tools and find MITRE Caldera, Metasploit, and Atomic Red Team on top.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_15645
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Red Team Redemption: A Structured Comparison of Open-Source Tools for Adversary Emulation
Landauer, Max
Mayer, Klaus
Skopik, Florian
Wurzenberger, Markus
Kern, Manuel
Cryptography and Security
Red teams simulate adversaries and conduct sophisticated attacks against defenders without informing them about used tactics in advance. These interactive cyber exercises are highly beneficial to assess and improve the security posture of organizations, detect vulnerabilities, and train employees. Unfortunately, they are also time-consuming and expensive, which often limits their scale or prevents them entirely. To address this situation, adversary emulation tools partially automate attacker behavior and enable fast, continuous, and repeatable security testing even when involved personnel lacks red teaming experience. Currently, a wide range of tools designed for specific use-cases and requirements exist. To obtain an overview of these solutions, we conduct a review and structured comparison of nine open-source adversary emulation tools. To this end, we assemble a questionnaire with 80 questions addressing relevant aspects, including setup, support, documentation, usability, and technical features. In addition, we conduct a user study with domain experts to investigate the importance of these aspects for distinct user roles. Based on the evaluation and user feedback, we rank the tools and find MITRE Caldera, Metasploit, and Atomic Red Team on top.
title Red Team Redemption: A Structured Comparison of Open-Source Tools for Adversary Emulation
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.15645