Certified: The CISSP Prepcast

Welcome to The Bare Metal Cyber CISSP Prepcast. This series helps you prepare for the ISC squared CISSP exam with focused explanations and practical context.
In this episode, we are exploring two of the most proactive and powerful tools in modern cybersecurity: threat hunting and red team exercises. These are not defensive tactics in the traditional sense—they are active efforts to discover weaknesses, uncover hidden threats, and validate the strength of your defenses. As you prepare for the Certified Information Systems Security Professional exam, understanding these practices will not only help you pass the test but also give you an edge in real-world security operations. Threat hunting and red teaming are essential in mature security programs, especially as organizations face increasingly sophisticated attacks that often bypass automated detection tools.
Let us begin by understanding what threat hunting actually involves. Threat hunting is a proactive process. It means that security analysts are actively looking for signs of compromise or malicious activity that may have slipped past existing security controls. Unlike traditional monitoring, which waits for alerts, threat hunting starts with the assumption that something suspicious may already be happening—even if no alert has been triggered.
Threat hunters examine logs, network traffic, endpoint data, and behavioral indicators to uncover subtle signs of attack. These could be evidence of advanced persistent threats, zero-day vulnerabilities, or stealthy intrusions that are designed to evade detection. By searching for indicators of compromise, unusual patterns, or out-of-place behaviors, threat hunters can find threats that other tools and processes may miss.
What makes threat hunting especially valuable is its ability to reduce dwell time. Dwell time is the amount of time an attacker remains in a system before being detected. In many breaches, attackers remain undetected for weeks or even months. Threat hunting helps detect and remove these threats earlier, limiting damage and improving response outcomes.
To be effective, threat hunting requires skilled analysts who understand adversary tactics, system behaviors, and normal versus abnormal activity. It also requires a deep pool of data, including logs from endpoints, servers, firewalls, and intrusion detection systems. Threat hunting often includes external threat intelligence as well—information about known attack techniques, malware signatures, or current threat actor campaigns.
Let us now explore how to conduct an effective threat hunt. The first step is to define your objective. What are you hunting for? Are you looking for signs of lateral movement? Are you trying to detect credential abuse? Defining a clear hypothesis helps focus your efforts and avoid wasted time.
Next, you need the right data sources. Logs, endpoint telemetry, network flow data, DNS records, and authentication logs are all useful. The more visibility you have into your systems, the better your chances of spotting suspicious behavior. Threat intelligence feeds can also provide indicators of compromise to help guide your searches.
Use advanced tools to support your efforts. Security information and event management systems can correlate events across your environment. Endpoint detection and response platforms can track user actions, process executions, and file modifications. Machine learning tools can identify patterns that humans may miss.
Document everything. Track your steps, record what you find, and build timelines when appropriate. This information is essential for understanding how an attack unfolded and how to improve your defenses moving forward. When you discover indicators of compromise, use that information to adjust your monitoring rules, tune your detection tools, and update your incident response playbooks.
Now that we have a good grasp of threat hunting, let us shift to red team exercises. A red team exercise is a controlled, authorized simulation of an actual cyberattack. Red teams act as adversaries, using the same techniques and strategies that real attackers would use. Their goal is to challenge your organization’s defenses and help you see where the gaps really are.
Red teaming goes beyond vulnerability scanning or penetration testing. It involves full-spectrum attack simulation, from initial reconnaissance through exploitation, privilege escalation, lateral movement, data exfiltration, and even persistence mechanisms. Red team exercises show not only whether a vulnerability exists but whether it can be exploited in the context of your environment—and whether your security team would notice.
These exercises are designed to be realistic and unpredictable. Red teams might simulate phishing attacks, abuse misconfigured cloud environments, or test your physical security by attempting to gain access to restricted areas. They might target your backups, your software deployment tools, or even your internal communication channels. The idea is to think like an attacker and help you see your organization from their perspective.
Effective red team exercises provide insight into weaknesses that cannot be identified through automated tools alone. They test your people, your processes, and your technologies. They reveal not just what is vulnerable, but also what is visible, exploitable, and poorly defended. Red team findings help validate which security controls are working, which ones are not, and what needs to be prioritized in your remediation efforts.
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To implement effective red team exercises, start by documenting your goals. What do you want to learn? Are you testing incident response capabilities? Are you validating segmentation between networks? Are you simulating a ransomware attack? Be clear about the scope and rules of engagement.
Next, ensure you are working with skilled red team professionals. Whether they are internal staff or external consultants, red team members must understand attacker behavior, toolsets, and techniques. They should be able to execute realistic attacks while respecting operational boundaries and maintaining control over the process.
Red team activities must be secure and well-coordinated. You do not want to accidentally disrupt critical systems or cause unnecessary panic. Establish clear communication protocols, secure execution environments, and contingency plans. All stakeholders should know what is happening and what to expect.
After the exercise, conduct a structured debrief. This includes reviewing what methods were used, what vulnerabilities were exploited, and how your systems responded. Discuss what was detected, what was missed, and how your team reacted. Use this information to create a prioritized list of actions—patches to apply, controls to improve, procedures to update, or training to reinforce.
Document everything in a formal report. This report should detail the objectives, the timeline of attack activity, findings, remediation recommendations, and lessons learned. Share the report with decision-makers and use it to drive improvements across the organization.
Let us now discuss the security controls that support threat hunting and red team activities. First, you need comprehensive visibility into your environment. This means deploying monitoring solutions that collect data from across your infrastructure. Logging, network analysis, endpoint visibility, and threat intelligence integration are all essential.
Security information and event management systems help centralize this data and allow for advanced correlation. Endpoint detection and response platforms provide deep visibility into user behavior and system activity. Network detection tools track east-west traffic and detect lateral movement.
Regular vulnerability assessments and penetration tests help maintain visibility into weaknesses. These activities complement threat hunting by identifying technical flaws, while threat hunts identify behavioral anomalies. Together, they provide a holistic view of risk.
Incident response capabilities must also be strong. When threats are identified—either through hunting or red teaming—your team must be ready to respond. This includes containment, eradication, recovery, and communication. Your plans should reflect real-world scenarios and be informed by recent exercises and findings.
Access controls, secure communication tools, and protected evidence storage also support these efforts. You must be able to manage the data generated by threat hunts and red team exercises without risking leaks or unauthorized access. Use encryption, authentication, and role-based access to safeguard sensitive information.
Continuous improvement is a core principle. Threat actors do not stand still, and neither can your defenses. Review your strategies regularly. Adapt your tools, retrain your staff, and update your playbooks. Use what you learn in each threat hunt and red team exercise to get better.
Analyze past incidents. Use their timelines, impact assessments, and response results to shape future hunts and exercises. Integrate feedback from your stakeholders. Ask your analysts, engineers, and business units what they observed and what they need. Improvement only happens when learning is shared and acted upon.
Make collaboration part of your culture. Threat hunting and red teaming are not just technical functions—they require alignment across departments. Security, compliance, operations, and leadership must all be engaged and supportive. Everyone must understand their role in strengthening security from the inside out.
Training supports all of these efforts. Analysts must stay sharp. Red teamers must keep up with new tactics. Your defensive teams must learn from each exercise and adapt their strategies. Make learning part of the job, not an afterthought.
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