White Team

Primary definition

1. The group responsible for refereeing an engagement between a Red Team of mock attackers and a Blue Team of actual defenders of their enterprise's use of information systems. In an exercise, the White Team acts as the judges, enforces the rules of the exercise, observes the exercise, scores teams, resolves any problems that may arise, handles all requests for information or questions, and ensures that the competition runs fairly and does not cause operational problems for the defender's mission. The White Team helps to establish the rules of engagement, the metrics for assessing results and the procedures for providing operational security for the engagement. The White Team normally has responsibility for deriving lessons-learned, conducting the post engagement assessment, and promulgating results. 2. Can also refer to a small group of people who have prior knowledge of unannounced Red Team activities. The White Team acts as observers during the Red Team activity and ensures the scope of testing does not exceed a pre-defined threshold.

Also known asExercise Control Team · Referee Team · Assessment Team · Adjudication Team · Control Team · Rules Team · Observer Team
3 sources cited4 related termsReviewed Aug 10, 2026
Committee on National Security Systems Glossary CNSSI 4009-2015View source

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CNSSGC

1. The group responsible for refereeing an engagement between a Red Team of mock attackers and a Blue Team of actual defenders of their enterprise's use of information systems. In an exercise, the White Team acts as the judges, enforces the rules of the exercise, observes the exercise, scores teams, resolves any problems that may arise, handles all requests for information or questions, and ensures that the competition runs fairly and does not cause operational problems for the defender's mission. The White Team helps to establish the rules of engagement, the metrics for assessing results and the procedures for providing operational security for the engagement. The White Team normally has responsibility for deriving lessons-learned, conducting the post engagement assessment, and promulgating results. 2. Can also refer to a small group of people who have prior knowledge of unannounced Red Team activities. The White Team acts as observers during the Red Team activity and ensures the scope of testing does not exceed a pre-defined threshold.

Committee on National Security Systems Glossary CNSSI 4009-2015 · 2024

Cite this term

Permanent URL · stable across revisions
Election Security Glossary. (2026). White Team. In Election Security Glossary. Retrieved August 22, 2026, from https://electionsecurityglossary.com/glossary/white-team

Sources

3 cited · last checked Aug 10, 2026

01

Committee on National Security Systems Glossary CNSSI 4009-2015
Committee on National Security Systems Glossary CNSSI 4009-2015

High consensus

View source

02

NICCS Glossary
NICCS Glossary

Multi-source

View source

03

The Cyber Glossary
The Cyber Glossary

Multi-source

View source

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