What is the Cybersecurity Color Wheel Model? Explained

Today there is a high importance of Cybersecurity that employs a vibrant palette of color-coded teams, each team is represented by a unique color: Red, Blue, Yellow, Purple, Green, Orange, and White. This “cybersecurity color wheel” system helps organize and order the roles of each team, specifically in their work.

1. Origins of the Cybersecurity Color Wheel

In the early days, cybersecurity began with two types of teams,i.e., Red Teams (attackers) and Blue Teams (defenders), popularised from military wargame terminology in the 1960s and 70s . With increasing complexity in the cybersecurity space, these two terms became limited, and wider group terms began to be implemented.

Here is one example:

In year 2017, when the cybersecurity expert April C. Wright introduced a more nuanced model in her “Orange Is the New Purple” presentation at Black Hat USA . Building on Red and Blue, she introduced a Yellow Team—the system builders—then identified mixed “secondary” color teams (Purple, Green, Orange), plus a coordinating White Team. Scholars like Nick Van Haver and Dr. Allen Harper used these terms to further develop these ideas into a full “color wheel” model .

2. Primary Colors: Foundations of Cybersecurity

Red Team – The Attackers

The red team, using ethical methods, breaks into the systems to identify their vulnerabilities. They then pass on these vulnerabilities to the blue team,i.e., the defenders.

Blue Team – The Defenders

Blue team uses the Red team’s information to constantly analyse and develop strategies against top 10 cyber security threats and attacks. Using these analyses, they prepare themselves for real attacks and are the ones responsible for preventing any real attacks when they occur.

Yellow Team – The Builders

Yellow Teams focus on secure system design and construction, including secure coding, development, and architecture. They build the systems that the other teams test and protect, embedding security from the ground up. The yellow team includes software developers as well.

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3. Secondary Colors: Collaborative Synergies

Mixing two primary colors yields hybrid roles:

Purple Team – Integrated Test & Defense

Purple Teams fuse Red and Blue capabilities into a coordinated, collaborative unit. Instead of operating separately, they work together during simulated attacks, leading to faster detection and solutions. They create a continuous feedback loop between attack and defense, providing full information on weakness and then preparing a strategy to prevent it.

Green Team – Secure DevOps Bridge

They are a blend of Blue and Yellow. The Green Team’s responsibility is to develop a system manageable and defendable by the defenders. They add logging hooks, enhance detection in code, and integrate security throughout the SDLC so that the defenders get the best possible systems to defend .

Orange Team – Security Educators

Orange Teams are a combination of Red and Yellow, and strive to train developers on attack methods. They are an integration of Yellow Team’s ability to improve systems based upon the vulnerabilities discovered by Red Teams, and help embed secure coding practices. Orange Teams run workshops, red-team-influenced training, and code reviews based on attacker insights to ensure the safest possible cyberspace is provided to the company.

2. Primary Colors: Foundations of Cybersecurity

4. The White Team – Coordinators and Governance

White Teams are the executive forces of any cybersecurity team. They oversee, organize, and coordinate activities among all color teams. They define policies, set scope and rules of engagement for exercises, govern compliance, and assess metrics . Situationally, they may serve as referees and observers during tests, audit findings, and ensure alignment of the cybersecurity protocols to be in line with business objectives.

5. Why Having All Colors Matters

Organizations relying only on a Blue Team miss out on deeper insights from Red Teams and the prevention-first strategies of Yellow Teams. Together, the color wheel model ensures that security is:
Built with resilience (Yellow)

• Tested aggressively (Red)
• Defended continuously (Blue)
• Refined through collaboration (Purple, Green, Orange)
• Governed effectively (White)

6. Gray Team, Black & White Hats: Expanding the Spectrum

Many discussions also reference ethical hacker categories: White Hats (benign), Black Hats (malicious), and Gray Hats (somewhere in-between)—labels for individuals rather than structured teams. Though not part of the cybersecurity color wheel, they add nuance to hacker intent.
A distinct “Gray Team” focuses on threat research, intelligence, and methodology development, informing all other color teams.

7. Real-World Applications

Finance Sector

Banks deploy Red Teams to test payment systems, Blue Teams to monitor fraud anomalies, Yellow builds secure backend code, Purple ensures Red findings inform Blue controls, Green adds code-level logging, Orange trains devs on API threats, while White oversees compliance and reporting. This intercoordination is very important for the functioning of the banks and prevents and minimizes cyberattacks.

Healthcare

Hospitals generally use this model to ensure safe medical device software (Yellow), test vulnerabilities (Red), monitor patient data leakage (Blue), coordinate improvements (Purple/Green), and educate staff (Orange) under HIPAA supervision (White) .

8. Key Benefits of the Color Wheel

• Holistic security: All aspects of system security are covered.
• Collaboration: Cross-team synergy fosters better communication and faster remediation.
• Proactive architecture: Secure design (Yellow/Green) reduces future vulnerabilities.
• Continuous improvement: Purple feedback loops drive refinement.
• Training culture: Orange instills attacker-aware development.
• Governed governance: White ensures oversight, compliance, and strategic alignment.

9. Potential Challenges

• Organizational silos: Teams must avoid fragmented communication.
• Resource overlap: Smaller organizations may combine roles rather than create distinct teams.
• Cultural friction: Differences in mindset (attack vs defense vs code) require bridging.
• Governance clarity: The White Team must define clear roles and expectations among the color groups.

10. Beyond the Color Wheel

While the wheel primarily focuses on security roles, modern models—often labeled CNAPP, CSPM, or XDR—integrate tools that enable these collaborative functions at scale . Automation, observability, and threat intelligence platforms now bridge human teams with machine-based enforcement.

Summary Table

Team Color	Primary Role	Key Focus	Typical Members
Red	Offensive Testing	Break into systems	Pen testers, ethical hackers, and injection specialists
Blue	Defensive Ops	Detect, respond, protect	SOC analysts, IR teams, threat hunters
Yellow	Secure Development	Build with security	Developers, architects, and system admins
Purple	Red–Blue Integration	Improve coordination	Hybrid offensive/defensive experts
Green	DevOps Security Bridge	Logging, secure SDLC	DevSecOps engineers, infra coders
Orange	Security Education	Developer training, culture building	Security trainers, knowledge managers
White	Governance & Oversight	Rules, compliance, and exercise management	CISO, auditors, GRC, security leadership
Gray (Bonus)	Threat Research	Malware, attacker TTP analysis	Threat intel researchers, malware analysts

Conclusion

The cybersecurity color wheel transforms the abstract field of InfoSec into an intuitive, actionable framework where a smooth coordination between different teams takes place. Each color embodies a domain, and their blend ensures full-spectrum defense from inception (Yellow) to attack simulation (Red), defense (Blue), refinement (Purple), build-defense alignment (Green), training (Orange), and oversight (White).