Adversarial Attack Simulation Exercises (AASE), often referred to as Red Team (RT)
exercises, are simulated scenarios designed to test the resilience and security of systems against adversarial attacks. These exercises typically involve creating and executing various attack scenarios, such as malware infections, phishing attempts, or network intrusions, in a controlled environment. The goal is to assess the effectiveness of defense mechanisms, incident response procedures, and overall security posture.
Singapore’s financial industry is a prime target for cyber attacks due to its significant role in global finance and the vast amount of sensitive data it handles. As a result, financial institutions invest heavily in cybersecurity measures, including regular testing and simulations like AASE (Adversarial Attack Simulation Exercises) in Singapore.
Singapore – Leading Through Technological Advantage
Singapore has recognized the need for robust cyber security to maintain this technological advantage and its leading position.It is pushing its national cyber security program via different initiatives – e.g. the 2018 cyber security bill that allows national servicemen to spend part of their mandatory military service improving their cyber security knowledge.
Another such thought-leading initiative is the sharing of know-how and best practices. By providing this kind of guidance and thought-leadership on a national level, Singapore manages to let this culture, knowledge, and leadership trickle down into private companies big and small and thus improves the overall cyber security in Singapore.
Where Does Breach & Attack Simulation Fit In?
The paper identifies that low-maturity organizations should spend more time with the planning phase and familiarize themselves with attack simulation. BAS (Breach & Attack Simulation)provides the perfect platform for this allowing users to learn about different TTPs and real-world attacks in the users’ own time
Medium-maturity organizations should generally move towards more periodic attack simulations. This is often prevented by Red Teams being expensive or an AASE requiring a lot of organizational planning. Periodic or even continuous attack simulations is one of the main goals of BAS presenting another natural fit
The AASE paper describes many guiding principles for high-maturity attack simulations. While BAS cannot provide social engineering or physical attacks, it helps with many demands detailed by the AASE paper
Reduced impact on production systems, less risk. BAS is usually not deployed against production infrastructure
Repeatable, high-quality of attacks. The skill in human Red Teamers can vary greatly. BAS provides continuous, repeatable and reliable results as described in 6.4 of the AASE paper ‘Exercise Frequency’
BAS is not to replace Red Teams – it can augment them greatly. As described in 7.1.4.3 in the AASE paper, the attacking team must be able to demonstrate expertise in selecting and using a large variety of TTPs. BAS can easily make those available and even allow a junior practitioner to use them
Ultimately, BAS technology provides a natural fit for the requirements laid out in the AASE paper. AASE has a strong organizational aspect and goes well beyond simply running attack simulations. This is where BAS can provide huge improvements and cost savings for organizations – by offering the attacking & defending team a common platform. The BAS tool, like Picus, can be used during the planning phase of the Advanced Attack Simulation Exercise to select the right attack scenario, TTPs and attack paths.
Picus can also help to improve the execution of the Adversarial Attack Simulation Exercises (AASE) – the repeatable execution of cyber-attacks should not be where the majority of human effort is spent during attack simulations. Click the button below to see more About Picus Security: