Blue Team Learning Resources
A structured collection of resources for mastering Blue Team practices, focusing on defense, monitoring, and incident response.
No resources found matching your search term.
Understanding the core principles and objectives of Blue Team operations.
What is Blue Teaming? Blue Teaming involves defending an organization’s assets and networks by monitoring, detecting, analyzing, and responding to cybersecurity threats.
Core Concepts
- Defense in Depth: Implementing multiple layers of security controls (technical, administrative, physical) to protect assets.
- Threat Hunting: Proactively searching through networks and datasets to detect and isolate advanced threats that evade existing security solutions.
- Incident Response: Establishing and following processes (Preparation, Identification, Containment, Eradication, Recovery, Lessons Learned) to handle security breaches.
- Log Analysis & Monitoring: Collecting, correlating, and analyzing log data from various sources (servers, network devices, endpoints) to identify suspicious activity.
- MITRE ATT&CK Framework: Using the framework to understand adversary behaviors and map defensive controls, detection strategies, and mitigation techniques.
Essential tools used for detection, analysis, response, and forensics in Blue Team operations.
SIEM (Security Information & Event Management)
Splunk
Popular platform for searching, monitoring, and analyzing machine-generated big data via a Web-style interface.
ELK Stack
Open-source stack for log aggregation, parsing, storage, and visualization (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana).
QRadar
IBM's enterprise Security Information and Event Management solution for threat detection and compliance.
Security Onion
Open source platform for threat hunting, security monitoring, and log management.
Visit SiteEndpoint Detection & Response (EDR)
CrowdStrike Falcon
Cloud-native endpoint protection platform offering EDR, threat hunting, and intelligence.
Carbon Black
Endpoint security platform providing EDR, prevention, and managed detection capabilities.
Defender for Endpoint
Microsoft's integrated EDR solution providing preventative protection, post-breach detection, and automated investigation.
Threat Intelligence Platforms
AlienVault OTX
Open Threat Exchange - one of the largest open threat intelligence communities.
ThreatConnect
Threat intelligence platform for aggregating, analyzing, and acting on threat data.
Network Defense & Monitoring
Wireshark
The world's foremost network protocol analyzer. Essential for troubleshooting and analysis.
Suricata
High performance Network IDS, IPS and Network Security Monitoring engine.
Zeek (Bro)
Powerful network analysis framework, providing detailed logs for security monitoring.
Forensics & Incident Response (DFIR)
Volatility
An open-source memory forensics framework for incident response and malware analysis.
FTK (Forensic Toolkit)
Commercial digital forensics platform providing comprehensive processing and analysis capabilities.
Autopsy
Open source digital forensics platform and graphical interface to The Sleuth Kit® and other tools.
Velociraptor
Advanced digital forensics and incident response tool for endpoint data collection and analysis.
Platforms offering labs and scenarios to practice Blue Team skills.
Cyber Range & Lab Platforms
- Blue Team Labs Online: Practical, realistic labs specifically designed for defenders.
- TryHackMe: Offers defensive-focused rooms, learning paths (e.g., SOC Level 1), and scenarios.
- Hack The Box: Features Blue Teaming challenges (Sherlocks) and potentially defensive aspects in labs.
- Splunk Boss of the SOC (BOTS): Interactive Capture-the-Flag style competition using Splunk for investigation. Datasets often available for practice.
- ThreatHunter-Playbook/Playground: Resources and simulated environments for practicing threat hunting techniques.
- CyberDefenders: Platform offering practical labs focused on Blue Team skills like SOC analysis, DFIR.
- Immersive Labs: Provides hands-on labs covering various cybersecurity skills, including SOC and incident response.
Examples of how Blue Teaming functions within organizations.
Enterprise Security Operations (SOC)
- Implementing and maintaining SIEM solutions for centralized logging and alerting.
- Monitoring network traffic (NIDS/NIPS) and endpoint activity (EDR) for anomalous behavior.
- Triaging security alerts, investigating potential incidents, and escalating as necessary.
Incident Response (IR)
- Investigating confirmed security incidents, containing the breach, and eradicating the threat.
- Performing root cause analysis (RCA) to understand how an incident occurred and prevent recurrence.
- Documenting incidents and communicating findings to stakeholders.
Threat Hunting
- Proactively searching for indicators of compromise (IoCs) and advanced threats missed by automated tools.
- Analyzing system and network data patterns to discover novel attack vectors and techniques based on hypotheses.
- Integrating threat intelligence to inform hunting activities and provide context to findings.
Contribute to this Hub!
Found an awesome Blue Team resource we missed? Let us know!
Suggest a Resource