In recent years, “red teaming” has become a market buzzword often prompting corporate excitement and weaving an image of “pentesting” in a red cape. This is unacceptable. The essence of red teaming is a healthy mix of “Gegenspiel” (Adversarial Thinking) and “Kontraspiel” (Adversarial Thought), terms coined by Dr. Mark Mateski of Red Team Journal.In the talk we will discuss how “red teaming” is not limited to the digital arena alone but includes physical and social vectors that should be considered for an effective operation. The social category does not only include social engineering but aspects such as history, philosophy, culture and art as well. In this talk, we will explain the logic behind these elements and their interconnection. We will discuss how these elements can provide significant intelligence when dealing with threat actors, and how they can additionally help craft a defense strategy. Drawing from examples and case studies from both the real and fictional world we will expand on Dr. Mark Mateski’s concepts by applying both of them respectively to analyzing the character Grand Admiral Thrawn from the Star Wars universe and the way he successfully does his threat profiling and fusion of intelligence from a diverse number of sources. The parallelism with Grand Admiral Thrawn is considered to be an entertaining yet representative example of applying critical thinking in gathering and analyzing intelligence and conducting threat profiling.Examples from the real world will be provided throughout the presentation as well, showcasing how the elements discussed in the CHIMAERA model have significantly contributed in past cases.
Lastly, participants will have the option to participate in a “debrief”. Participants will be provided with certain threat actors and they will be given a few minutes to research and to think critically to figure out why those threat actors do what they do, not in terms of the TTPs but in terms of their motivations, rationale, etc. Feedback will be provided right after.