Organizations need a range of expertise to withstand increasingly common and advanced adversarial attacks. To do so, businesses must adopt proactive and innovative strategies to test and strengthen their defenses—and that’s where red and purple teams come into play.

There are countless specialties within cyber security, all with individual talents and specializations. Red teams and purple teams play pivotal roles in the red teaming process, but they have different responsibilities and goals. 

Red teams focus on offensive tactics, simulating real-world attacks to expose vulnerabilities, while purple teams bridge the gap between offense and defense, fostering collaboration to improve security.

Learn about the key responsibilities and differences between red teams vs purple teams and how they work together to build a stronger, more resilient approach to cyber security. 

What Is a Red Team?

‍Red teaming is an increasingly popular strategy that allows organizations to get ahead of real-world attackers. The red team is a group of ethical hackers specializing in simulating real-world cyber attacks against the organization. These teams adopt the mindset of real cybercriminals, who often use creative and out-of-the-box strategies to gain unauthorized access. 

The red team’s goal is to uncover vulnerabilities and test how well the organization fights against adversarial attacks. Their key responsibilities include:

• Conducting research: The red team is in charge of thoroughly researching the organization and finding potential targets for attack. However, the targets still need to fit within the test’s agreed-upon rules of engagement (ROE) to prevent business disruptions. 
• Simulating attacks: The red team conducts realistic simulations to mimic actual threats an organization may face. That includes exploiting weaknesses, testing incident response, and using social engineering tactics like phishing. 
• Reporting: The red team documents the vulnerabilities they discovered and provides recommendations for remediation. 

What Is a Purple Team?

Red teams focus exclusively on playing offense, while blue teams play defense. Purple teams combine offensive and defensive strategies to make red teaming a collaborative process. The goal is to remove barriers between the red and blue teams so organizations can mitigate as many vulnerabilities as possible. 

While some of their responsibilities can overlap with the red team, many purple teams have responsibilities such as: 

• Facilitation: The purple team mediates between the red and blue teams, ensuring they’re on the same page. 
• Accountability: The purple team ensures the organization acts on the red team’s findings. If the red team doesn’t prioritize risks in their report, the purple team helps stakeholders rank vulnerabilities by priority. 
• Improving the testing process: The purple team looks at the entire red teaming process to promote a cycle of ongoing improvement. They might organize debriefs and feedback sessions to facilitate learning between teams or offer training on the latest cyber threats. 

3 Main Differences Between Red and Purple Teams in Cyber Security

Red and purple teams have some overlap in responsibilities, but they aren’t quite the same. They differ in a few key areas:

1. Collaboration

The red team operates independently, while the purple team works collaboratively with both red and blue teams. Red teams are solely interested in going on the offensive to simulate real-world attacks, while the purple team brings the red and blue teams together to improve security. 

2. Goals

Organizations rely on red team members to act like adversaries and identify their systems’ weak points. Some purple team members know how to act like an adversary, but they tend to focus more on implementing the red team’s suggestions. 

Since the purple team also understands the red team, they can translate technical terms for other stakeholders and hold the organization accountable for implementing the red team’s suggestions.

3. Deliverables

The red team produces a report listing all the exploits they found, including recommendations for fixing these weaknesses. The purple team takes the red team’s report a step further by developing an actionable plan to improve organizational defenses. 

Ultimately, red and purple teams have different goals. The red team tests how vulnerable the organization is to attacks, while the purple team thinks like a strategist to strengthen security holistically. 

Not all organizations have purple teams during the red teaming process, but they can add a helpful layer of accountability and clarity, especially for large red teaming exercises. 

How Red Teams Test Generative AI Security

Generative AI systems, including large language models (LLMs) and image-generation AI, are susceptible to vulnerabilities like prompt injection attacks, model poisoning, and data leakage. Red teams apply offensive security tactics to identify these weaknesses before malicious actors can exploit them. Their key responsibilities in securing AI platforms include: 

• Adversarial testing: Red teams simulate real-world cyber threats, such as prompt injections that manipulate AI responses, attempts to extract proprietary model data, or backdoor attacks designed to alter model behavior. 
• Model evasion techniques: By generating adversarial inputs, red teams test whether an AI model can be tricked into producing misleading, biased, or harmful outputs. 
• Data privacy assessments: Red teams analyze whether sensitive training data can be reconstructed or inferred from AI-generated responses, identifying risks related to data leakage. 

With these tactics, red teams help organizations pinpoint vulnerabilities and develop defenses before real attackers strike. 

Using Continuous Automated Red Teaming (CART) for AI Security

Given the scale and complexity of generative AI systems, manual red teaming alone is not enough. Many organizations now integrate continuous automated red teaming (CART) tools to conduct ongoing security evaluations.

Unlike traditional red teaming, which is periodic, CART tools continuously monitor and attack AI models, uncovering vulnerabilities as they emerge. CART platforms generate dynamic attack vectors, testing AI models against ever-evolving adversarial tactics, including new forms of prompt injection and model exploitation. 

Integrating CART and other red teaming tools into security operations enables organizations to immediately respond to identified vulnerabilities, ensuring real-time threat mitigation. 

How Purple Teams Strengthen AI Security Collaboratively

While red teams focus on offensive security, purple teams integrate their findings into a broader security strategy. Since AI security is an evolving field, organizations need a collaborative approach to implement continuous improvements. Purple teams support generative AI security by: 

• Facilitating secure AI development: Purple teams work with red teams, blue teams, and AI developers to ensure security best practices are embedded in AI model training, deployment, and maintenance. 
• Enhancing model defenses: After red teams uncover vulnerabilities, purple teams collaborate with data scientists and security engineers to reinforce model guardrails, such as implementing stronger input validation and automated content moderation. 
• Monitoring for emerging threats: AI security threats evolve rapidly. Purple teams create feedback loops to continuously test, refine, and enhance AI system defenses against new adversarial techniques. 

Next-Gen Cyber Defense Done For You

Red and purple teams work together to strengthen an organization’s cyber security posture. While red teams focus on identifying vulnerabilities by simulating real-world attacks, purple teams foster collaboration between offensive and defensive efforts. 

Organizations can build a robust and proactive defense against ever-evolving cyber threats by understanding these teams’ differences and leveraging their unique strengths.

Elevate your cyber security strategy with Mindgard. Our advanced AI-driven tools and expert guidance empower businesses to detect vulnerabilities, strengthen defenses, and achieve cyber resilience. Schedule a quick demo today to see Mindgard in action.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can an organization have both a red team and a purple team?

Absolutely. Red and purple teams have complementary skills. While the red team focuses on uncovering vulnerabilities through simulated attacks, the purple team communicates and applies the red team’s suggested defensive measures. 

Having both teams fosters a well-rounded security posture in organizations with mature security programs.

How do purple teams hold organizations accountable? 

Purple teams use continuous monitoring, regular testing, and iterative feedback loops to ensure their organizations sustain improvements. They work closely with both red and blue teams to validate that defenses are still effective, especially as new threats emerge. 

The purple team also documents lessons learned after every red team exercise, implementing updated policies and procedures as they go.

How does a red team handle ethical concerns while simulating attacks?

Red teams are ethical hackers by nature. While they think like adversaries, they have the organization’s best interests in mind. Still, it’s good for organizations to have rules of engagement (RoE) in place to ensure that the red team’s attacks don’t hurt the business. 

The red team needs clear boundaries and permissions, not to mention controlled testing environments. These measures ensure the red team doesn’t compromise sensitive data or interrupt operations.

What does red team vs blue team vs purple team mean in cybersecurity?

When it comes to red team vs blue team vs purple team, red teams simulate real-world attacks to uncover weaknesses. Blue teams protect systems, detect breaches, and respond to incidents. Purple teams foster collaboration between red and blue, ensuring discovered vulnerabilities are quickly addressed and defenses are continuously improved.