red team

red team noun: an independent group employed to challenge an organization by assuming an adversarial role or point of view.

Noun

red team (plural red teams)

An independent group employed to challenge an organization by assuming an adversarial role or point of view.

red team (third-person singular simple present red teams, present participle red teaming, simple past and past participle red teamed)

(transitive) To challenge an organization by assuming an adversarial role.
- Operationally, fielded systems are red teamed by the Air Force Information Warfare Center (AFIWC) under the Air Force's Computer Security Assessment Program (CSAP).1998, Hearings Before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, page 218
- […]Senator Diane Feinstein, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, aptly characterized the alternative analyses applied to the bin Laden intelligence: “They red-teamed it, and red-teamed it, and red-teamed it.”2015, Micah Zenko, Red Team: How to Succeed By Thinking Like the Enemy, Hachette UK, →ISBN

Noun
plural	red teams
Verb
third-person singular present	red teams
present participle	red teaming
past participle	red teamed
past	red teamed
alternative form	red-team

Red was the color of the Soviet Union on maps during the Cold War, so "red team" represented the adversary during military simulations.

What does red team mean?: Red team means an independent group employed to challenge an organization by assuming an adversarial role or point of view.
What part of speech is red team?: Red team can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of red team?: The plural of red team is red teams.

Adapted from Wiktionary: red team (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “red team.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/red_team. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.