Red Team Theories - Suffering

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Suffering exists for the good of man.

2020 has been an extraordinarily awful year. I’m certain I don’t have to go into great detail, but with disease, riots, and unjust killings in mind, I’d like to quickly expound on the embracement of suffering, mentioned in The Theory of Red Teaming - A Call to Action. The existence of suffering is often used to question the existence of God. It is probably the best logical argument one can make. Why would a god that is, “good,” permit such a thing? Life is filled with tragedy and with what can be perceived as senseless suffering. Illness, terrorism, war, poverty, and the simple fact that at some point we will all die makes it exceedingly difficult to think otherwise. Now, I say this not to make a religious argument, but I would like to point out one simple fact. God does not promise you a life free of pain.

Pain and suffering will come knocking at your door when you least expect it. If it hasn’t yet, then just wait. If you are not going through it now, I am sure you know someone that is. Often, when it finds us, we’re unprepared for it. Suffering imminently reminds us of the imperfections of this world. However, there is a peculiar thing that happens that often goes unnoticed. Something good is also brought forth. You see, people make the mistake of isolating suffering. They box themselves into it and focus on the pain. But, if you closely examine the ripples of suffering, you will realize that it does not have a determined end. Suffering is something with which we get to choose what to do with it. Suffering compels a choice.

It is, in fact, human beings that are what gives things sense and reason. As my father-in-law slowly succumbs to Lewy Body Dementia, early in his years, the experience for his wife and children has been painful, fatiguing, and emotionally despairing. While he wasn’t particularly close with his children, I have watched each of them come to terms with old wounds. They have come to reconcile, and in some respects forgive their father. Each of them has made a concerted effort to be home and to help care for him. I have witnessed his wife, with firm resolve, put her husband before herself in all things. And, while many tears have been shed, I consider this to be a moment of glory for this family. The siblings have grown closer together than they ever have been, and they have come to know their parents in ways they never did before. They have grown personally, emotionally, and spiritually. And, this ordeal has grounded in them the importance of faith, love and family.

In the moment, yes, suffering is awful. But, what is good doesn’t have to, “feel,” good. Understand this. Suffering is a transformative force. It serves to provide us with an opportunity to change the world. The sense in suffering comes in what we choose to do with it. In nature, is this not what we see? Consider the many forest fires that have ravaged our country over the last twenty years. All we see on the news is the devastation. But, thanks to evolution, plants and animals in fire prone areas often rebound vibrantly. Grasslands rapidly regenerate providing food and easy pickings for local wildlife. These fires, while devastating, also allow for new long term life. Evolution and adaptation are the outgrowth of affliction and destruction.

To understand and see the good in suffering, you must widen your scope. The danger of linear thinking is always the starting point. Anything worth it’s salt requires sacrifice. Be it physical fitness or a proper education, it all requires sacrifice. No successful business was ever built without someone suffering for it. We bargain with the present to attain something in the future. While this is voluntary suffering, the same rules apply to involuntary suffering. Something good can and will be attained if you look for it. Understand that suffering invariably makes the world a better place. So, do not expect to live your life in a pain moratorium. Summon your grit, find your steel, and bleed willingly. To create a world where there is no suffering is to create a world that is doomed to die.

“I did not find the front-line trenches or the C.C.S. [Casualty Clearing Station] more full than any other place of hatred, selfishness, rebellion, and dishonesty. I have seen great beauty of spirit in some who were greater sufferers. I have seen men, for the most part, grow better not worse with advancing years, and I have seen the last illness produce treasures of fortitude and meekness from most unpromising subjects.”

- C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Red Team Theories - Emotional Awareness

I sincerely appreciate all of the positive feedback that I have received for my last article.  I have decided to continue my work on this subject with a series of articles that I will release periodically.  These articles will focus on practical ways to implement the adversarial mindset to your daily life.  If you simply want to improve yourself or if you’re really adamant about becoming a “Red Teamer”, hopefully the information I will share in this series will prove useful.  This article, in particular, focuses on the importance of emotional awareness and more important, emotional availability.

"When people talk, listen completely. Don't be thinking what you're going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out, know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling. Try that for practice." - Ernest Hemingway

Social Engineering

As the bad actor in an adversarial assessment you must explore all avenues of attack.  If you carefully examine past incidents involving security breaches, you’ll quickly learn that the human element of security is often the weakest.  The success of an attack is most often the result of human negligence.  So, for a moment, let’s put aside all of the technical skills that you and your group would need to be an effective red team.   Can you have and maintain a conversion with a stranger?  If you needed to extract information from your target without your expensive high-tech gadgetry, how would you do it?

There is a scene in The Bourne Identity that is often overlooked and actually used to bring levity to the story, but I feel it is most realistic scene in the entire film.  Bourne tasks Marie with gathering records from a hotel regarding a certain Mr. Kane.  He gives her an exhausting list of directions to follow once she enters the hotel.  As she walks inside, she sees a male front desk agent, he smiles at her.  Suddenly, the scene cuts to her meeting Bourne outside, records in hand.  Now, how do you think Marie was able to acquire those records without following Bourne’s direction?  Her feminine wiles?  Following Bourne’s questioning, she states she simply asked for them.  Don’t we all wish red teaming was that easy?  Marie tells Bourne that she told the desk agent she was Mr. Kane’s personal assistant.  Although, she provides a simple answer, the engagement was likely more complicated than that.  I believe she was able to tap into the most receptive part of the human person. 

Human emotion.

A few days ago, I had an interesting conversation with my girlfriend.  She works in property management.  On top of her daily tasks, she is constantly fielding problems, dealing with vendors, addressing tenant complaints, and managing her employees.  During our conversation, she said, “Whenever you need something from someone, never demand it.  Saying, ‘please,’ won’t help you either.  Instead, put yourself in a position of the needy.  State your problem and ask for help.”  People that ask for help are automatically people you feel you can trust.  Why?  Because they are trusting you to help them.

People in need of help trigger something in human beings.  They trigger emotion, it can be sympathy, sadness, in some cases it can even be pride.  When you put yourself in a position of need, especially in this particular way, you put your target in a position of power.  It will make your target feel like they hold all of the cards.  Whether or not that is  true is irrelevant.  Although, you never really see Marie’s engagement with the hotel agent, I would like to think the encounter was more complex than the movie makes it out to be.

This method of social exploitation, by it’s very nature, runs contrary to what you would normally expect from an adversarial engagement.  The goal is to be noticed.  You want your target to focus on you.  However, it is also important to understand the culture of the environment in which you are going to work.  Some people are more willing to help a man wearing a Verizon shirt asking for a restroom than they would a panhandler.   Remember your ABCs.

Emotional Awareness

To be truly effective in a social engagement, emotional awareness is essential.  To be aware of others, you must learn to be emotionally available yourself.  All of our emotions are inherently good.  Although, some may be uncomfortable, they are still good.  They are primal tools, which inform us of ourselves and our surroundings.   In the information age, emotional insensitivity seems to be norm, not the exception.  This leaves us at a disadvantage.  If it takes you more than sixty seconds to identify what you’re feeling at any given moment, you probably have an issue.

If you think about how the human body responds to stimuli, your body reacts first, then your emotions, and finally your intellect.  All three are meant to compliment each other.  Once your body reacts, you are meant to feel, and then temper those emotions with your reason.  So, how do you begin to put this into practice?   Next time you read a book, have a glass of wine, or dinner with your significant other, ask yourself how it made you feel.   The emotions are there, you just have to start giving them their proper attention.

Once you gain a better understanding of your own emotional state, you can purposefully begin to engage others.  Years ago, when I realized I was a bit emotionally underdeveloped, I decided to make a dramatic career shift.   The work forced me to engage people on a daily basis.   I encountered numerous difficulties.  In spite of that, I had to remain proactive, and I had to challenge myself.  And after two years, I found that I had I changed and grown in ways I never thought possible. 

So, if you find yourself lacking in emotional awareness, you know have work to do.  Red Teaming is a multifaceted and multidisciplinary field.  This particular skill will eventually be applied to any large scale social or cultural intel gathering activities.  Challenge yourself, do not fear failure, and embrace your own suffering.  It is the man that can properly harness his emotional state and recognize the emotional state of others, that will find success in whatever he chooses to pursue.   So, do you still want to be a red teamer?

“There are some games you don't get to play unless you are all in.” - Jordan B. Peterson

The Theory of Red Teaming - A Call to Action

Since March 2018, I have been following the Red Team Podcast.  It is a podcast and blog dedicated to the subject of red teaming.  Now, you’re probably asking, “What is a red team?”  The concept is rooted in military history.  If that is of interest, just google Red Cell. A Red Team is a group that assumes the role of adversary and challenges another group to test and improve the efficacy of its strategies and procedures.   As the adversary, a Red Team will attempt to attack and exploit their target by any viable means necessary.  Vectors of attack can be physical, digital, social, and even theoretical.  The intention is to highlight the vulnerabilities of a target and eventually work with the target to eliminate those vulnerabilities.  Sounds cool, right?

The Red Team Podcast, however, dives deeper into the subject of what true red teaming is and discusses the mindset required to be an effective “Red Teamer.”  Ironically, the more you listen to the podcast, the more you learn that red teaming is quite difficult to define.  It spans numerous subjects of thought and study.  By it’s very nature, it proves difficult to provide a short and concise definition that encompasses all of its elements.  However, with all of the information provided in the podcast, the hosts (Uri and Dan) constantly field two questions in particular.  Hopefully, I can provide an answer to both that will be easy for average folk to understand.

“What is Red Teaming?”

 Ultimately, Red Teaming is a call to action.

It is about figuring out what you don’t know about yourself, and acting on that information.  It’s about self improvement.

From a security standpoint, it’s knowing your adversary.  It is about knowing who the hostile actors might be and what they want from you.  It is knowing how they will exploit your weaknesses and impose on your vulnerabilities. 

It’s imperative to know two things.  First, who is the adversary?  It can be a competitor, it can be a malicious hacker, or an insider threat.  “Insider threat,” means your adversary is within your own group or organization.  It is also important to realize that an attack will come through any viable means necessary.  It can be a physical attack, a digital breach, or simply through social engineering.

So, to truly define your enemy, the best course of action is to have an independent party, a Red Team, complete an assessment of your organization.  This Red Team will assume the role of your adversary.  They will carefully observe your practices, define habits and a method of exploitation, and finally commit a real world attack.   Afterward, they will report any discovered vulnerabilities, they should help you to mend them and help create any proactive response protocols deemed necessary.

From a Red Teamer’s perspective, your method of attack should be unique to what is observed.  If you truly want to service your client, remaining unpredictable is key.

Now, to the dismay of Uri and Dan, this usually leads to the second question.

“How do I become a Red Teamer?”

The answer is simple, but may be difficult for some to accept.

Build resiliency.

Many seem enthralled with the “cool factor” of red teaming, without realizing what is actually required of them.  They undermine the fact that red teaming requires a very specific mindset to achieve the objective.  It is not about what exploits you know or your locking picking skills.  If you really want to know what it takes to be a Red Teamer, apply the methodology of red teaming to yourself. 

What don’t you know?   What are your weaknesses?  Be sure to account for personal bias.  Speak with trusted friends, ask them to comment on your personality traits and your habits.  What do you do when you encounter difficulties?  Do you panic?  Do you quit?

Test yourself.  Put yourself in uncomfortable situations and see what happens.  Is there a particular skill set in which you lack expertise?  Say you have the digital capability, are you fit enough to properly accomplish a physical assessment?  If not, what are you doing about it?  If you don’t have the discipline to better yourself, what makes you think you can provide such a service to someone else?

To be a Red Teamer, you must have the strength of mind and character to embrace your own suffering.  Once you can achieve that, then the answer to this question should be clear to you.

“Do not sleep under a roof. Carry no money or food. Go alone to places frightening to the common brand of men. Become a criminal of purpose. Be put in jail, and extricate yourself by your own wisdom.” - Miyamoto Musashi