HTB Stories #19 <> Red Teamers Across Industry, a Multi-Company Panel

·1 hr 41 min·5 clips

Gordon argues that getting caught by an unknown technical control can be a successful red-team outcome.

1. Hack The Box: Stories presents a panel about red teamers across industry and routes audience questions through a Hack The Box AMA. 2. Michael Best Kunzel says he has worked in the industry for more than 10 years and has been a red teamer for about five months. 3. Andrew says he has worked in offensive security since 2007 and has been a red teamer for about five months. 4. Gordon says he works as a red teamer at Zoom and has focused on offensive security since around 2016. 5. The panel is designed to explain red-team work and how someone might become a red teamer. 6. Andrew says staying an avid red teamer requires consistent learning across technologies because relevant fields change quickly. 7. Michael describes red teaming as a lifestyle involving news, reading, research, and ongoing education. 8. Gordon says operations, offensive tool development, operating systems, defenses, and EDR research create different time commitments. 9. Andrew defines red teaming as adversarial emulation focused on avoiding detection while achieving a particular objective. 10. Gordon contrasts pen testing’s narrower testing scope with red teaming’s objective-based and emulation-based approach. 11. Gordon says most red-team operations do not need a zero-day to reach their objectives. 12. Andrew says a zero-day should fit the threat actor, target technology, TTPs, and engagement scope. 13. Gordon says red-team success is not guaranteed and that an operation can still succeed by reaching at least one objective. 14. Andrew describes multiple stepwise goals, including initial access and later objectives such as domain administration or financial data. 15. Andrew explains that a white card can let a team move past a blocked rung while showing defenders where controls worked. 16. Gordon says being caught by an unknown technical control can be valuable because it makes the environment harder to attack. 17. Andrew describes pen-test reports as finding-heavy and red-team reports as detailed exploit scenarios. 18. Gordon characterizes red-team reporting as a story of objectives, decisions, roadblocks, and alternate paths. 19. Cybersecurity learners interested in adversary emulation, systems, and operational problem-solving would enjoy this AMA. 20. Listeners seeking only beginner certification guidance or purely defensive security topics might skip it.

As heard by us

A red-team AMA makes the case that offensive security improves when defensive thinking stays in view.

This Hack the Box episode shapes a red-team AMA into a grounded survey of how security careers can branch. Industry red teamers talk through what it can take to move toward red-team work, why it is worth looking around before committing to offensive security, and how adjacent…

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Why you'd press play

You get a Friday-panel view of red teaming, with enough defensive perspective to keep the career map from narrowing too soon.

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