America 250: Red teaming: The Cold War-era tactic now used to test cybersecurity defenses
America 250: Red teaming: The Cold War-era tactic now used to test cybersecurity defenses
Publish Date: 2026-06-04 13:38:00
Source Domain: wtop.com
Red teaming, a cybersecurity practice rooted in Cold War military strategy, helps organizations test how well their defenses hold up against simulated real-world attacks.
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Imagine a group of authorized hackers quietly breaking into a company’s network, moving from system to system and leaving without anyone noticing.
That is not the plot of a spy movie. It is a real-world cybersecurity practice known as red teaming.
Red teaming traces its roots to military planning.
According to the World Economic Forum, the U.S. military helped popularize the concept during the Cold War by using designated “enemy” teams to challenge strategies and defenses and expose weaknesses before real adversaries could.
Over time, the approach expanded beyond the military. Today, it plays a central role in cybersecurity and is increasingly used in areas such as artificial intelligence safety.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology defines a red team as a group authorized to simulate adversarial attacks on an organization’s systems.
The goal is to strengthen security by demonstrating the real-world consequences of a breach and testing how effectively defenders respond under realistic conditions.
Unlike basic vulnerability scans or checklist-driven audits, red teams emulate real attackers, using the same tools, tactics and techniques as cybercriminals or nation-state actors.
How red teaming works
A case study from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency illustrates how red teaming works in practice.
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