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Every Threat Intelligence Team Should Have These 6 Things

Posted by Marbenz Antonio on February 15, 2023

In the realm of cybersecurity, the age-old saying “the best defense is a good offense” holds more relevance than ever before. This quote, often credited to the renowned NFL football coach Vince Lombardi, emphasizes the importance of being proactive in managing cyber threats, which are growing in number and complexity. To effectively combat cyber threats, it’s essential to have a strong understanding of the potential dangers you may face, making threat intelligence a critical component of proactive cybersecurity strategy. By staying ahead of the game, you can better safeguard your digital assets and prevent cyber attacks.

Threat intelligence is the systematic gathering, examination, and distribution of knowledge regarding potential security threats to enhance the comprehension and defense against them. In light of the projected increase of the worldwide cost of cybercrime from $8.44 trillion in 2022 to $23.84 trillion by 2027, taking a proactive stance that utilizes threat intelligence can help secure your organization against constantly changing security threats. Additionally, by keeping abreast of the most recent threats and vulnerabilities, organizations can proactively take steps to prevent or minimize the damage of attacks before they occur.

The Role of Threat Intelligence

Threat intelligence pertains to the information an organization possesses about potential security threats, which includes details about the attackers’ motives, tactics, techniques, and procedures. This information may be obtained from a variety of sources, such as internal and external data, open-source intelligence, industry reports, and more.

Being familiar with the attacker can help organizations gain a better grasp of their probable cyber threats and devise more efficient tactics for safeguarding themselves. For instance, comprehending the attacker’s incentives can aid an organization in pinpointing probable targets and prioritizing its actions to defend against attacks. Similarly, comprehending the attacker’s methods, techniques, and technical capacities can assist an organization in identifying potential gaps in its defenses and taking appropriate measures to address them.

Threat intelligence can be leveraged by security teams to construct incident response plans, which delineate the actions an organization should take when a security breach occurs. This procedure can entail specifying the appropriate course of action for various types of attacks, such as data breaches, denial of service attacks, and malware infections, and designating the appropriate resources and personnel required to respond to such attacks.

All things considered, threat intelligence assumes a crucial function in enabling organizations to recognize and secure against probable security threats and reduce the impact of those threats if and when they arise. By having a better comprehension of attackers’ motives, tactics, techniques, and technology, organizations can take more knowledgeable and effective measures to shield themselves and their assets. For instance, this could involve creating tailored cybersecurity training programs, maximizing resource utilization, selecting the most suitable security tools, and other similar efforts.

Who is threat intelligence for?

Every security position can derive advantages from threat intelligence. While it is becoming more prevalent to disseminate and employ threat intelligence throughout the organization, security departments must do so.

Here are a few instances of how security and risk specialists, teams, and managers can employ threat intelligence:

• Network Administrator – Detect and obstruct malevolent network activity and secure their networks by addressing vulnerabilities before them being exploited by attackers.
• Security analyst – Identify and monitor threats, evaluate their effects, and establish suitable countermeasures.
• Incident responders – Determine the origin and type of an attack and create a strategy for responding.
• Risk managers – Pinpoint and evaluate the conceivable risks to the organization and create plans to mitigate those risks.
• Vulnerability management teams –  map and prioritize vulnerabilities.
• Cybersecurity managers and Information security officers – Assign priority to resources, allocate budgets, establish and manage Security Operations Centers (SOCs), produce and implement security policies and procedures, and ensure adherence to pertinent regulations.
• Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) – Render knowledgeable strategic security decisions and assign resources to the most crucial domains.

Threat Intelligence vs. Threat Hunting

Threat intelligence pertains to the acquisition and analysis of information regarding potential cybersecurity threats. It encompasses the collection of data from diverse sources, such as social media, open-source intelligence, and proprietary intelligence feeds, and utilizes it to recognize patterns and trends that can aid organizations in comprehending their probable risks. Nowadays, automated tools utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence are chiefly responsible for gathering and analyzing threat intelligence.

After threat intelligence activities conclude, threat hunting initiates, which is the proactive practice of actively seeking and identifying potential threats within an organization’s systems and networks using threat intelligence and threat indicators. Threat hunting amalgamates human proficiency and advanced technologies to discern and trace suspicious activity and take measures to alleviate or extinguish the threat.

There are two key differences between the processes:

• Focus – The primary focus of threat intelligence is to gather and analyze information about possible security risks, while in contrast, threat hunting concentrates on actively exploring and identifying those risks within an organization’s systems and networks.
• Timing – Usually, threat intelligence is geared towards detecting long-term trends and patterns in potential threats, whereas threat hunting is more concerned with identifying and dealing with immediate threats as they occur.

In summary, threat intelligence and threat hunting are both crucial in helping organizations protect themselves from potential cyber threats. However, they serve distinct purposes and involve different methods. Threat intelligence aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the threat landscape and prepare organizations for potential risks in the long term. On the other hand, threat hunting involves actively identifying and responding to immediate threats found within an organization’s systems.

Every Threat Intelligence Team Should Have These 6 Things

1. Establish an intelligence priorities framework

To effectively manage risks and vulnerabilities, it’s crucial to prioritize the required information when collecting data for threat intelligence. Organizations should begin by mapping their critical assets and identifying intelligence gaps to assess the risks to those assets and vulnerabilities. This will enable them to define their intelligence priorities and identify the specific types of intelligence needed to analyze those risks and vulnerabilities. This can involve gathering information about specific threat actors, vulnerabilities, or trends in the threat landscape.

2. Consider an ‘outside-in’ approach

As their activities increasingly move online and become remote, such as remote work and cloud services, their attack surface expands, making a single cybersecurity approach like the typical “inside-out” insufficient. Therefore, adopting an “outside-in” approach is essential, which involves examining your systems’ vulnerabilities and weak points as seen from the outside by potentially malicious actors. This way, organizations can proactively identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in their networks, systems, and applications that external attackers could exploit.

3. Monitor third-party risk and supply chain

An effective threat intelligence process should also include monitoring third-party risks, which refer to the potential risks and vulnerabilities associated with using external vendors, suppliers, or partners in the supply chain.

To monitor third-party risks efficiently, every organization needs to establish a process for evaluating and managing the security of external partners. This process could involve performing security assessments, ensuring that security controls are implemented, and regularly monitoring and reviewing the security posture of external partners.

4. Analyze behavior analytics

A powerful approach to threat intelligence in addressing both insider and external threats is behavior analytics.

• Identifying employee behavior patterns that indicate potential threats – Analyzing individual or group behavior can detect potential security risks such as unusual login patterns, irregular network activity, or the use of unauthorized personal email.
• Identifying trends and patterns in the behavior of malicious actors – This enables security professionals to gain a better understanding of the methods and tactics employed by threat actors, which can help in the development of effective countermeasures and vulnerability mitigation.

5. Map intelligence collection

Continuous data streams of past, present, and potential security threats are provided through threat intelligence feeds. As the collected intelligence is vast and varied, it is important to map and classify it regularly to use it efficiently. Automated data mapping tools are highly effective for achieving this goal.

6. Combine threat intelligence with existing security solutions

Combining threat intelligence with existing security solutions can create a powerful synergy. Threat intelligence can offer real-time, relevant, and actionable information about potential threats that can boost the effectiveness of existing security solutions. For example:

• Threat intelligence can enhance the accuracy of security analytics and incident response systems by providing a better understanding of an organization’s vulnerabilities and potential threats.
• Assist in ensuring that cybersecurity training plans stay up-to-date and target the most important and applicable threats.
• By combining threat intelligence with existing security solutions, organizations can gain a more comprehensive view of the threat landscape, which can help them identify, prevent, and mitigate cyber attacks more effectively.
• By prioritizing security measures based on threat intelligence, organizations can allocate their resources and tools more efficiently, focusing on the most critical threats.
• Providing insights into the motivations and tactics of cyber attackers, threat intelligence can help organizations defend against future attacks proactively.

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