The media is full of stories about cyber threats, attacks, and ransomware demands, and why is this the norm? Digital transformation creates larger data estates, opening new avenues of attack for cybercriminals. Bad actors’ tactics are sophisticated and constantly evolving, making it difficult for companies to stay ahead of emerging threats. Cyber threat intelligence gives businesses the information and capabilities they need to refine their defenses continually.
Targeted cyber threat intelligence is information that helps organizations better protect themselves against cyberattacks. It includes data and analysis that give security teams a comprehensive view of the threat landscape so they can make informed decisions about preparing for being notified of, detecting, and responding to attacks. Having focused information about actor behaviors, their tools and techniques, their exploits, the vulnerabilities they target, and emerging threats can help your organization prioritize its security efforts.
Threat intelligence platforms analyze large volumes of raw data about emerging or existing threats to help you make fast, informed cybersecurity decisions. A robust threat intelligence solution maps global signals daily, analyzing them to help you proactively respond to the ever-changing threat landscape. The best platforms allow for targeted cyber threat intelligence to be delivered to enrolled entities. No cyber team needs to search through volumes of data to find something about their organization.
A cyber threat intelligence platform uses data science to filter out false positives and prioritize the risks that could cause real damage. That data comes from:
- Open-source threat intelligence (OSINT)
- The Dark Web
- Proprietary collection or honey pots
- Threat intelligence feeds
- In-house analysis of Net flow data
A simple threat data feed might provide information about recent threats, but it does not make sense of that unstructured data to determine which threats you’re most vulnerable to or suggest a plan of action after a breach. That work would normally fall to human analysts. What datasets are available to the user? This is important to understand the datasets and what they mean if there are “hits” against the domain or supply chain your team is investigating.
A threat intelligence solution, ideally one with applications that use AI, machine learning, and advanced capabilities such as Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) automates many security functions to help you preempt attacks rather than merely react to them. Threat intelligence also enables security professionals to automate remediation actions when an attack is revealed, such as blocking malicious files and IP addresses.
Threat intelligence is important because it helps organizations prioritize the strategies and tactics that will better protect them against a dynamic threat landscape. It is challenging to keep on top of the constant stream of information about emerging threats and decide what’s relevant and actionable.
Threat intelligence, when combined with tools enriched with machine learning and automation such as security information and event management (SIEM) and extended detection and response (XDR), can enhance your threat detection and response efforts by:
- Unmasking your likely adversaries and their motivations.
- Can your daily cyber threat intelligence be loaded into your SIEM to block/blacklist them?
- Exposing an adversary’s tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).
- Showing the different ways various attacks might affect your business.
- Identifying common indicators of compromise (IOCs) that signal an active breach.
- Suggest a set of actions to take when you are attacked.
- Automatically blocking entire attacks.
- Informing your broader security strategies and workflows with rich threat data.
Any business can improve its security posture with threat intelligence. It provides small and medium-sized businesses with the information they need to defend themselves from ransomware and other risks strategically. But security teams and enterprise executives also have much to gain from threat intelligence.
In addition to better use of human skills and faster threat response, threat intelligence solutions offer new efficiencies for people in many roles:
- Security and IT analysts: Achieve and maintain network security.
- Cyber intelligence analysts: Analyze threats against the organization and develop insights that will help them inform others about what threats are relevant.
- Security operations centers (SOCs): Get context to assess threats and correlate them against other activity to determine the best and most effective response.
- Computer security incident response teams (CSIRTs): Gain a deeper understanding of vulnerabilities, exploits against those vulnerabilities, and methods attackers use to breach systems.
Executive managers understand what threats are relevant to their organization so they can make data-based budget recommendations to their CEO and board.
Threat intelligence can be broken down into four (4) categories. Use them to help you decide who needs to receive what type of information and how they need to be notified:
Strategic - Strategic threat intelligence is high-level analysis for non-technical stakeholders concerned with the overall business, such as C-suite executives, IT management, and boards of directors. Communicate this type of information in a broad context with the long term in view. These audiences must manage overall risks, such as how the general threat landscape is evolving, how a business decision might introduce new vulnerabilities, how advanced technology is helping businesses mitigate threats at a lower cost, or what the potential financial and operational implications of a breach are.
Tactical threat intelligence is information cybersecurity experts need to take immediate action to mitigate threats. It includes technical information about the most current TTP trends and IOCs and is usually consumed by IT service managers, SOC center employees, and architects. Use this intelligence to make decisions about security controls and create proactive defense strategies. This type of information is always in flux and can be automated to help security teams maintain maximum agility.
Operational - Operational threat intelligence is knowledge about specific threats and campaigns. It provides specialized information about an attacker’s identity, motivations, and methods for incident response teams. Enable security professionals in your organization to receive this kind of intelligence more efficiently with a cyber threat intelligence platform that automates data collection, translating foreign-language sources when needed.
Technical - Closely aligned with operational intelligence, technical threat intelligence refers to signs of an attack, such as IOCs. Use a threat intelligence platform with AI to automatically scan for these types of known indicators, including phishing email content, malicious IP addresses, or specific malware implementations. SOC and incident response teams can respond rapidly to this information and prevent damage to your business.
Interested in learning more about Red Sky Alliance’s cyber threat datasets and services for small, medium, and enterprise users? Please visit https://www.redskyalliance.com and read our White Paper titled Cyber Threat Intelligence Data Sets and Services posted on our home page.
This article is presented at no charge for educational and informational purposes only.
Red Sky Alliance is a Cyber Threat Analysis and Intelligence Service organization. For questions, comments, or assistance, please get in touch with the office directly at 1-844-492-7225 or feedback@redskyalliance.com
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