Bugcrowd is excited to announce the launch of Red Team as a Service (RTaaS)—the first-ever offering to bring the scale and flexibility of crowdsourcing to red teaming. By conducting realistic simulations against an organization’s people, processes, and technology, RTaaS can help security leaders proactively identify new attack vectors and reduce risk.

 

The untapped potential of red teaming

Despite significant investments in security, many organizations still struggle to keep pace with the complexity of today’s threat landscape. Attack surfaces are constantly expanding and evolving, with vulnerabilities emerging across AI/LLMs, cloud infrastructure, digital workplaces, and third-party ecosystems—just to name a few. Furthermore, sophisticated threat actors are increasingly chaining vulnerabilities across multiple surfaces to escalate privileges and unleash devastating breaches. 

Red team exercises can help organizations stay ahead of threats and take a proactive stance toward security. By simulating the behaviors of real-world adversaries, including nation-state actors, organized cybercriminals, and insider threats, these exercises enable security teams to uncover blind spots and validate response protocols. According to Forrester, red team assessments typically result in a 25% reduction in security incidents and a 35% reduction in the cost of security incidents. 

Despite its value and applicability, red teaming is underutilized because hiring a good red team is hard. Traditional red team consultancies rely on a handful of highly skilled operators who juggle intense, back-to-back projects, making it challenging to hire and scale red teams with business growth. Plus, many lack specialized operators in key skill areas, making it difficult to get the right expertise. 

Furthermore, the few organizations that invest the time and money to overcome these challenges struggle to incorporate the results from red team exercises. They must sift through noisy, siloed reporting and manually disperse findings across an organization. As a result, red teaming has failed to live up to its full potential and deliver the expected security ROI. You can learn more about these challenges by downloading the Ultimate Guide to Red Teaming. 

At Bugcrowd, we’ve seen the power of crowdsourced security in overcoming security skills shortages and providing continuous protection. By harnessing the collective skills and expertise of the hacker community, organizations have seen resounding success in detecting novel vulnerabilities and efficiently scaling coverage. Now, we’re applying all the benefits of crowdsourcing to red teaming—bringing scale, agility, and rewards-driven results to make red team exercises accessible to all organizations.

Bugcrowd RTaaS

Bugcrowd RTaaS is the first-ever offering to bring crowdsourced security to red teaming, enabling organizations of any size to incorporate it into their security strategy. By blending the power of our global operator community with a range of fully managed engagement models, we simplify the implementation of red team exercises to close hidden gaps and improve resilience beyond what traditional consultancies can achieve. Below are just a few of the benefits of RTaaS: 

  • Mirror real-world outcomes—Bugcrowd RTaaS simulates the behaviors of any threat actors that may target an organization, from nation-state actors to insider threats, identified through in-platform, tailored threat intelligence. The insights from the exercise provide organizations with an authentic understanding of their environments’ vulnerabilities. 
  • Reduce risk faster—Through the Bugcrowd Platform, the control group can monitor progress and findings in real time. We provide in-depth reports with visual attack chains, attack narratives, and remediation advice (including mapping findings to a root cause and security controls). For swift remediation, organizations can incorporate findings directly into their software development life cycle through our end-to-end integration library. 
  • Ensure flexible engagements—Our elastic pool of operators makes it easy for organizations to scale their RTaaS engagements up and down. Because we provide three distinct service offerings, organizations can select the engagement type that best aligns with their security goals.
  • Use the power of the Bugcrowd Platform—All Bugcrowd red team operations run on our comprehensive security platform. This enables security leaders to track the performances of their RTaaS engagements alongside other security programs, providing a holistic view. 

We asked Nerdwell, a long-time hacker and red teamer, to share his thoughts on RTaaS: “As a hacker, I’m really excited about Bugcrowd’s new RTaaS offering. RTaaS takes all the benefits of bug bounty and penetration testing as a service to the next level by showing customers how their cybersecurity defenses stand up against the latest real-world attacks in a safe and controlled manner.”

Nerdwell Bugmoji Nerdwell further shared that he is most excited about how RTaaS will demonstrate the value of simulation testing: “Red teaming is the best way to see how well an organization’s multitude of security controls integrate to provide a defense-in-depth posture, and to identify any gaps in a safe and controlled way. By incorporating real-world attack scenarios in a safe and structured testing methodology, red teaming is a fantastic way for cybersecurity teams to highlight the value of a strong security posture to a business and its leaders.”

 

Flexible by design: A look at our RTaaS engagement models

Every organization has different security needs and levels of maturity. That’s why we offer three distinct delivery models, designed to align with an organization’s goals, resources, and risk tolerance. Here’s how each offering works:

Assured

This assessment model mirrors traditional red team approaches while incorporating crowdsourced expertise. In this model, a dedicated team of operators engages with your organization for a certain period of time to be determined by the project scope. This model can be used for various scenarios, such as intelligence-led simulations, regulation testing (to meet industry and compliance standards), and internal/external breach threat simulations (including social engineering tactics like phishing and vishing). 

Here’s how it works:  

  • Once the objective is finalized and the Red Team is onboarded, they complete a full-spectrum attack simulation (including the “In,” “Through,” and “Out” phases). The Red Team collaborates closely with a designated control group, usually comprised of security leaders or regulators. 
  • Once the exercise is complete, the Bugcrowd Platform generates a final report with detailed findings and remediation guidance and it is presented to the organization.

Blended

Blended Red Team Operations combine structured, traditional red teaming with scalable, private bug bounty-style testing for any intelligence-led simulations. This hybrid approach provides precision and flexibility, making it ideal for organizations that want to try out continuous red team assessments with minimal risk. 

Here’s how the process works: 

  • Once the goals are established, a small vetted team of operators handles the initial “In” phase. These operators submit attack plans to a red team manager for approval and receive rewards from a total reward pool based on each approved plan’s success, impact, and stealth.
  • Bugcrowd red team managers evaluate and approve the operators’ plans, which, along with other findings, are reported dynamically via the Bugcrowd Platform. 
  • Approved successful attacks are handed off to an Assured Red Team, leveraging the gained initial access to execute the “Through” and “Out” phases. 
  • After the Assured Red Team completes the exercise, the platform generates a final report with detailed findings and remediation guidance for the organization. 

Continuous

Continuous Red Team Operations deliver persistent security testing tailored to clients’ dynamic needs. In this offering, small rotating teams of vetted experts conduct the “In” and “Through” phases as ongoing private bug bounty programs. This model can be used for continuous testing across all phases of a Red Team engagement process, or scoped to just the “In” or “Through” phase operations. 

Here’s a breakdown of how it works: 

  • Once the engagement goals are identified, small, vetted teams attempt to gain initial access using centralized threat intelligence and reconnaissance. If they are unsuccessful after a two week window, they are switched out for a different team. 
  • All attack plans are submitted to Bugcrowd Red Team Managers for approval. Operators are rewarded for approved attacks based on success, impact, and stealth. 
  • Depending on the scope of the engagement (see below), the team either hands off to another team for the “Through” phase or continues to try to achieve the objectives for an additional month. 
  • All findings are reported dynamically via the Bugcrowd Platform. 

Comparison of all three RTaaS engagement models.

 

Get started with RTaaS

Bugcrowd’s RTaaS is the first offering to bring crowdsourcing’s scale, agility, and rewards-driven impact to red teaming—enabling the continuous assessment of security controls against real-world threats. With three flexible and scalable offerings (Assured, Blended, or Continuous), organizations can choose the model that best aligns with their goals, resources, and risk tolerance. Through the Bugcrowd Platform, organizations can track findings across RTaaS and other security programs, giving them a unified view of intelligence, risk management, and reporting. 

Take the next step and get a walkthrough of what RTaaS would look like for your environment.

 

Frequently asked questions (FAQ) about RTaaS

What is red teaming?

In a red team engagement, an organization tasks a group of security professionals (i.e., the “Red Team”) to carry out a simulated attack against the company’s technology, people, and processes. Think of it as an advanced exercise that simulates what threat actors can do to your organization. Red teams usually communicate directly with a control group, typically consisting of security leaders and/or regulators. 

What’s the difference between red and blue teams?

While the Red Team focuses on attacking a company’s technology, people, and processes, the Blue Team defends and protects the organization from attacks by the Red Team and real attackers. The Blue Team could consist of a single analyst who examines logs, a full-fledged security operations center, or a combination of human analysts and security tools like Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR).

What are the different phases of a red team engagement?

  • “In” phase—Initial compromise, leveraging techniques like OSINT, phishing, social engineering, password spraying, and vulnerability exploitation. This phase is focused on gaining an initial foothold in a target environment.
  • “Through” phase—Explores internal security controls, detection mechanisms, and response capabilities. It focuses on many steps, including lateral movement and privilege escalation within a compromised environment.
  • “Out” phase—This phase focuses on achieving the objectives of an engagement, performing exfiltration, demonstrating impact, and cleaning up an environment to cover a red team’s tracks and avoid detection.

How can red team assessments help organizations improve security outcomes?

Red team assessments simulate the behaviors of any threat actor that may target your organization—from nation-state actors, to organized cybercriminals and to insider threats—providing authentic insights into how your environment is most vulnerable. Other benefits include the following: 

  • Ensure holistic coverage—Assess your technology, processes, and people for overall coverage of key attack vectors. In a survey by Black Hat USA, over one third of organizations say their blue team rarely or never catches the red team. When organizations demonstrate how well blue teams can detect and respond to simulated attacks, teams gain a true understanding of their skill and coverage gaps and can use that knowledge to improve resilience, with 68% finding the exercises effective. 
  • Improvements in incident response time—Validate and stress test response capabilities by identifying gaps in your detection and response processes. Forrester reported that red team assessments typically result in a 25% reduction in security incidents and a 35% reduction in the cost of security incidents. 
  • Enhance decision-making—Red team exercises give executives insights that inform strategic decisions about security roadmaps and risk management.

What is the difference between red teaming and pen testing?

Red teaming usually covers a single attack chain, with an open scope that is intelligence and objective-led. It is black box, covert, and highly sophisticated, and it tests an organization as a whole. Pen testing usually follows a standard methodology to examine systems. It’s a “checklist” approach to security and doesn’t include testing attack entry points like people and processes. For more information, check out our comparison blog post on red teaming and pen testing.

How do you vet potential red team operators?

Bugcrowd implements a comprehensive and rigorous vetting process for operators that includes employment verification, qualification screening, financial and criminal background checks, and technical skills assessments. Additionally, we require all potential operators to complete an Operation Ready Training (similar to a practice training exercise) before participating in client operations. This final step ensures they can collaborate effectively and demonstrate technical proficiency that meets our standards.

How do you match organizations with red team operators?

Many of our operators come in pairs or groups and have a history of working in reputable red teams. Some have previously worked with Bugcrowd by way of pentesting and bug bounties, but many are pure red team operators. We use their experience, history, unique skill sets, and an operation’s objectives to match them to the proper mission. Additionally, we use a geographic and time zone algorithm to match tester availability with a target organization’s time zone and business hours, ensuring maximum operational coverage and security.

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