It's uncommon for discussions on cybersecurity technology to be very colourful. If you look at articles on the topic, almost all of them likely have accompanying images with minimal colours. Although there won't be any colourful images in this blog, a few colours that are significant in the world of security testing will be discussed.
What Is the Cybersecurity Color Wheel?
The cybersecurity color wheel is basically a multicolored circle that represents the various fields in cybersecurity. It is made up of primary colors, secondary colors, and white.
The primary colors are red, blue, and yellow; the secondary colors are a combination of those primary colors, and they include purple, orange, and green. In total, there are seven colors in the cybersecurity color wheel. These colors each represent a team in cybersecurity, and they all have their differing functions and career paths.
The cybersecurity color wheel was created by April C. Wright in 2017. She wrote a paper on the color wheel to expand and shed more light on the different fields in cybersecurity. Formerly, the only teams known in cybersecurity were the red and blue teams. But the security field has expanded beyond those teams.
“The Proposal Is To Promote The Idea Of Collaboration To Align The Goals And Objectives Of Different Teams.”
-Wright
Wright’s color wheel is actually a simplified one, which only features six colors: the primary and secondary ones. The colors yellow, blue, and red are positioned non-contiguously. Meanwhile, the colors green, orange, and purple are placed between the primary colors.
Primary Colors
Red
Red represents “The Breakers.” They are the team commissioned to perform “ethical hacking” on an organization. They are authorized to do whatever it takes to breach the security defenses. They perform more than just penetration testing. They can also conduct compliance testing, black-box testing, web app scanning, social engineering, and a host of other attacks. Just like the yellow and blue teams, the red team cannot be the same as the other two teams.
Blue
Blue represents “The Defenders,” the group tasked with the protection of the system created by the yellow team. They are responsible for implementing defensive security, damage control, and incident response. They may also play the role of threat hunters, operational security wardens, and data forensics experts. The blue and yellow teams may not be the same, because it will defeat the purpose of having different entities dedicated to specific functions. Also, they cannot have a point of blend-in (in the color wheel) if they’re one and the same.
Yellow
Yellow stands for “The Builders.” This is the team responsible for developing the security system of an organization. They could be an in-house IT department or a third-party security solutions provider. They may also be app or software developers, who are expected to ascertain that their applications are adequately secure.
Secondary Colors
The secondary colors represent a change in mindset on the part of the different teams or joint activities between teams.
Orange
The orange team stems from the need to bridge the gap between the red and the yellow team. Their primary responsibilities are education and facilitating interaction between the red team and the professionals building the application system.
The orange team educates the yellow team on the findings of the red and the vulnerabilities discovered during the penetration tests.
Green
The green team lies between the yellow and the blue teams. They bridge the gap between the builders and the defenders.
The main professionals in the green team are the DevSecOps Engineers. They ensure that applications are deployed and integrated securely and that the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is secure.
Purple
A purple team is the combination of both offensive and defensive cybersecurity professionals, an amalgamation of the red and blue teams, who perform their responsibilities as a single unit.
Instead of the usual workflow of a red team carrying out an attack and sending a report for the blue team to patch or fix, the purple team carries out both processes together. This leads to a more efficient and time-effective approach to cybersecurity.
There are other colors as well to fill up your curiosity
The White, Black, Grey and Gold Squad.
Just don’t ignore your inquisitiveness and go search for the remaining ones
