The Importance Of Resiliency
May 2017
Adversaries evolve constantly. They learn from failure, adapt faster than expected, and build new tactics from what used to work. Every attack adds complexity, and every failure teaches them something new. In that kind of environment, adaptability and resilience are what keep organizations alive.
Today’s digital, physical, and social systems are tangled together. That complexity hides gaps no one has tested or checked. A static security program that ignores how threats evolve will not hold up when pressure hits. Legacy assumptions and rigid procedures collapse when they meet a determined adversary. Even the best playbook can fail on contact if it cannot flex and recover. True resilience comes from designing programs, processes, and architectures around critical assets while maintaining business continuity at every level.
As General McChrystal wrote in Team of Teams, resilience often spells success where fixed systems fail. Brilliant engineering is not enough if it cannot adapt in real time.
Security programs must go beyond efficiency and experience. Adaptability and resilience have to sit at the center. Teams that can adjust quickly, learn on the fly, and absorb shocks are the ones that endure. Agile and resilient thinking should define how security teams design, plan, and act.
Resilience thinking is the opposite of predictive security. Perimeter tools and static defenses assume the world is stable. It is not. Thinking like an adversary exposes what you do not know and helps you expect what you cannot predict. Applying a Red Team mindset pushes programs to be flexible, creative, and ready for disruption.
You cannot measure how strong your security is without first understanding risk. Too many organizations build programs that look good on paper but fail under attack. Real resilience starts with honest testing, stress-testing, and constant adaptation. Every plan needs to evolve with the threat.
An advanced Red Team accelerates that process. They act like real attackers, revealing where defenses bend or break and showing how resilient your environment truly is. The goal is to move away from single points of failure and toward systems of interconnected defenses. Layers of controls, detection, and monitoring make the path to compromise longer, harder, and more expensive.
Do not assume your defenses work. Evaluate them under pressure. Learn where they fail. Then adapt. That is what resilience looks like.
Don't neglect to evaluate your controls in a realistic way.
Note: Originally written in the Advanced Capabilities Group’s blog.