How to Think Like an Attacker - Without Breaking the Law

Red Team for Blue Minds

By Rana Jahandad Khan

Most people think red teaming means hacking into systems. But for defenders like us especially those working for CMMC, ITAR red teaming starts with thinking like an attacker while staying 100% legal and ethical.

I’m not a hacker. I’m a compliance architect and a systems builder. But I’ve learned that if you want to defend your organization, you need to understand how attackers think and how they exploit what we overlook.

What Attackers Exploit (That We Can Fix)

• Unmanaged phones: with WhatsApp or Telegram - easy targets for social engineering
• Over-permissioned accounts: attackers love stale admin rights
• No Conditional Access: one stolen password = full access
• No audit trail: if you can’t prove it, it didn’t happen
• No backup strategy: ransomware’s best friend

How I Study Attackers (Legally)

• Google OSINT: filetype:pdf CMMC breach report
• MITRE ATT&CK Navigator: Map tactics to your environment
• Microsoft Secure Score: See what attackers would exploit first
• Threat reports: Read what ATPs are doing - not to copy, but to prepare

My Stack for Thinking Like a Red Team (as a Blue Mind)

• Microsoft 365 E3 + Entra P2 → Identity is the new perimeter 
• Defender for Endpoint P2 → Catch what AV misses
• Purview Audit + Insider Risk → Know what’s happening inside
• Azure Backup → Because Recovery is part of defense

Final Thought

You don’t need to break the law to think like an attacker. You just need to ask yourself:
If I were them, what would I exploit in my system?
Then fix it - one control, one policy, one insight at a time.

This blog is for defenders who build. If that’s you, welcome to the team.