Red team

A red team or red force is an independent group that challenges an organization to improve its effectiveness. The United States intelligence community (military and civilian) has red teams that explore alternative futures and write articles as if they were foreign world leaders. Little formal doctrine or publications about Red Teaming in the military exist , but its basic principles are emulated elsewhere, such as the response-rebuttal letters posted in the California Guide for Voters. Recently a physicist proposed a Red Team exercise to elucidate climate change and climate warming science.

Private business, especially those heavily invested as government contractors/defense contractors such as IBM and SAIC, and U.S. government agencies such as the CIA, have long used Red Teams. Red Teams in the United States armed forces were used much more frequently after a 2003 Defense Science Review Board recommended them to help prevent the shortcomings that led up to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The U.S. Army then stood up a service-level Red Team, the Army Directed Studies Office, in 2004. This was the first service-level Red Team and until 2011 was the largest in the DoD.

Penetration testers assess organization security, often unbeknownst to client staff. This type of Red Team provides a more realistic picture of the security readiness than exercises, role playing, or announced assessments. The Red Team may trigger active controls and countermeasures within a given operational environment.

In wargaming, the opposing force (or OPFOR) in a simulated military conflict may be referred to as a red cell (a very narrow form of Red Teaming) and may also engage in red team activity. The key theme is that the aggressor is composed of various threat actors, equipment and techniques that are at least partially unknown by the defenders. The red cell challenges the operations planning by playing the role of a thinking enemy. In United States war-gaming simulations, the U.S. force is always the Blue Team and the opposing force is always the Red Team.

...
Wikipedia