Gold Teaming
Combining the results of Red Teaming with a Crisis Management Exercise into a holistic Cyberattack Simulation
Gold Teaming
Prepare your organisation to effectively respond to, and recover from, cyberattacks. We put you to the test with the ultimate cyber crisis simulation.
Gold Teaming starts with our ethical hackers, who simulate adversaries by employing real-world methods to infiltrate your network and advance towards your crown jewels. After they reached the crown jewels and deploy the impact on your network, such as fake ‘ransomware’, an unexpected, simulated cyber crisis hits your organisation.
You gain insights into the technical vulnerabilities of your organisation, how they can be abused by threat actors, what their impact can be and how to fix them.
Your crisis organisation experiences a highly realistic cyber crisis scenario based on the real-world findings of the Red Teaming.
You train your crisis management plans and procedures, while your people develop skills and get comfortable being uncomfortable.
You connect your strategic crisis management to technical incident response.
Can You Navigate Your Way Out of a Cyber Crisis?
Executing a Gold Teaming is a cyber crisis experience that reflects reality as close as possible. The combination of Red Teaming with a crisis management exercise places your organisation in a unique simulation, without having to face the real-world consequences. The Red Teaming is based on the latest threat-intelligence and Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTP's) used by adversaries. The crisis management exercise provides financial, legal, and reputational insight into the impact of this cyberattack on your organisation and stakeholders. Our goal is to improve your organisation’s cyber resilience, both by improving your technical defenses against cyber threats and by getting your crisis organisation familiar with dealing with cyber crisis.
When the inevitable cyber crisis occurs, your teams and organisation are equipped to minimize the damage and have developed the right skills to cope with the situation. In the heat of the moment, everyone will be aware of what actions to take, guaranteeing that you maintain control.
Read our blog on Gold Teaming here and read our white paper on Cyber Resilience here!
Gold Teaming Exercise With NHG
Watch how we collaborated with NHG in a dynamic Gold Teaming exercise. This video highlights our proactive approach to strengthening cyber security defenses, showcasing real-world scenarios and expert strategies to tackle threats head-on. Through Gold Teaming, we help our clients prepare for potential cybersecurity crises by simulating the impact of a cyberattack in a controlled environment. This approach enhances their cyber resilience and strengthens their crisis management preparedness.
Project options
Walkthrough
Table-top
Simulation
Semi-live Simulation
Related Services
Adversary Simulation
We simulate your biggest threats in terms of business, bytes and behaviour.
Cyber Resilience Service
We prepare you to act resilient when faced with a crisis.
Rapid Response
In case of an incident we help you get back to business, as quickly and securely as possible.
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Frequently Asked Questions
We can imagine that you have many questions. You can always contact us to learn more. Below are a few examples of questions that we can investigate further with you.
How does Gold Teaming work?
Gold Teaming combines the technical findings of a Red Teaming with an (unexpected) crisis management exercise to create an experience that reflects the reality of a cyberattack as closely as possible. It all starts with Northwave’s ethical hackers, who meticulously simulate adversaries by employing real-world methods to infiltrate your network and advance towards your crown jewels. Their factual findings form the technical basis of the scenario of the crisis management exercise, in which your internal organisation and its most important (external) stakeholders come to life, to challenge your team(s) responsible for resolving the crisis. This way, we can provide you with a realistic scenario in which employees start calling, customers are angry, stakeholders demand answers and the media wants a statement.
An adversary simulation is necessary if you want to train your specialists to defend your organisation against your biggest threats. Or if you want to gain insight into how vulnerable your organisation is to certain threats. Based on this security exercise, the cyber resilience and security posture of your organisation is measured, and the Northwave Red Team helps to make your organisation resilient. Your overall ability to detect, respond, and to recover from a cyber attack will increase.
When is Gold Teaming fit for my organisation?
Our simulations are designed for mature organisations that have defined plans and procedures, conducted exercises in the past and are seeking to optimise their response and recovery capabilities. Executing a simulation underlines your organisation's commitment to continuous improvement and emphasizes the need to stay ahead in the landscape of cyber threats.
What is the difference between Gold Teaming and a regular crisis exercise?
In a regular crisis exercise, participants are challenged to communicate, collaborate, and exchange information in a hypothetical cyberattack scenario. Gold Teaming is different because it has incorporated the Red Teaming results into a realistic cyberattack scenario. This has many advantages (see below).
Why would you conduct a Gold Teaming?
If you are seeking the ultimate test for your organisation’s cyber resilience, Gold Teaming is ideal, because:
1. It reflects the realities of cyberattacks on your organisation as close as possible.
The red teamers infiltrated your network and exploited several vulnerabilities. They obtained initial access to your network, acquired administrative privileges, gained access to sensitive information in the network and compromised numerous systems, including the backup system and simulated data exfiltration. Exactly like a threat actor would infiltrate your systems. The Red Team findings are the basis of the crisis management exercise scenario, making it as realistic as possible.
2. It connects strategic management to the technical results of the Red Teaming.
Gold teaming is the excellent means to ensure that your strategic management understands the (technical) results of the Red Teaming. This is because they get shown what the impact and effect of exploitation of the technical vulnerabilities could mean for the internal and external stakeholders of the organisation. Doing a semi-live adds onto this, as your technical team will also get familiar with the information needs of the board level. This is because we can take an integrated approach which involves all your cybersecurity teams, from the Operational Incident Response Team and Tactical Team that need to assess and contain the technical impact, to the Communication Team and Strategic Crisis Management Team that need to coordinate and manage the various internal and external stakeholders.
In our more elaborate Gold Teamings, the participants are left unaware about the exercise until it takes place. This unexpected nature of the exercise makes your people comfortable with the uncomfortable. This helps with being mentally resilient in case a real cyber crisis strikes, as it demonstrates what is coming at you and what to expect during a cyber crisis.
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