Red Team versus Blue Team versus pentesting

We briefly discussed the difference between a Red Team exercise and pentesting in Chapter 14, Different Types of Cybersecurity Assessments, but let's look at it from a practical perspective. How do these two assessments differ in practice, as well as how does the Blue Team fit into the grand scheme of things?

Penetration-testing objective – get to the objective at any cost

Typically, penetration tests are time-restricted technical assessments designed to achieve a specific end goal—for example, to steal sensitive data or some secret recipe, to gain Information Technology (IT) or Operational Technology (OT) domain administrator status, to modify a production system, or to grab production data. The TTPs used in penetration-testing exercises are often derived from real-world attacks but are not necessarily developed or designed for the target of the penetrating-test engagement.

Penetration tests should ideally be...