Threat Intelligence

What is threat intelligence?

Threat intelligence is information about potential online attacks. Organizations gather and study this information to protect digital assets, data, and infrastructure from cybersecurity threats.

Organizations monitor online activity and work with cybersecurity groups to collect data. By using threat intelligence, companies stay proactive, setting up better defenses to stop bad actors from accessing or destroying confidential or valuable resources.

Threat intelligence software make it possible for security and IT teams to locate and investigate malicious software developed by hackers. This software reinforces the company’s digital safeguards and gathers data for risk analysis to prevent future attacks.

Types of threat intelligence

Four types of threat intelligence exist. Collectively, these types provide comprehensive protection for a company’s digital assets. 

• Strategic is a big-picture approach that involves understanding the motives, goals, and capabilities of the threat actors. It allows company leadership to understand the threat landscape to make long-term decisions about cybersecurity strategy and risk management. 
• Tactical is a bit more specific. IT managers examine intel on attackers’ current tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP). Tactics are the bad actors’ goals, like stealing sensitive data; techniques are the methods they use to accomplish their goals, like malware or phishing; and procedures outline the exact steps they take within those methods. 
• Operational is even more granular than tactical. This type involves collecting and analyzing details about specific attacks that occur. In a case where IT managers and security operations professionals delve into chat rooms or antivirus logs, they look closely at the mechanics behind attacks so that they can configure access controls and event detection rules accordingly. 
• Technical is the most detailed. Professionals examine specific technical information like indicators of compromise (IoCs) to piece together how the bad actor executed their attack. IoCs are pieces of forensic evidence that remain from malicious activity.

Benefits of threat intelligence

Threat intelligence requires planning, efficient software, and trained staff. It’s a lot of work, but if done well, threat intelligence offers:

• Early threat detection. Promptly identifying threats is the key to avoiding significant data breaches. By analyzing patterns and behaviors, organizations spot early signs of cyberattacks to form a swift, targeted response. 
• Data-driven decision making. IT teams use threat intelligence to gain insights into the continuously changing threat milieu. The data they gather helps them triage security measures, allocate resources, and counter emerging threats.
• Proactive defense techniques. With threat intelligence, organizations stay ahead by gaining visibility into hacker techniques and tactics. 
• Improved communication. Part of threat intelligence involves sharing intel with industry peers. Companies pool their collective knowledge so that everyone gains a broader perspective on emerging risks and potential vulnerabilities. 

Threat intelligence best practices

Threat intelligence gives organizations a full understanding of the damage their systems could encounter. To get the most out of this information, IT leaders should:

• Centralize data from diverse sources. Organizations should collect a wide variety of intelligence from open-source feeds, dark web forums, and internal data. This gives them the most complete view of the issues they face. Then, they should centralize this data via software so it’s easy to access.
• Monitor continuously. Cybercriminals constantly create sophisticated new tactics, and cybersecurity teams must review and analyze their intel and adapt as relentlessly. 
• Aim for automation. Automation lets companies scale back on manual processes to reduce the burden on their employees. For example, they may rely on automation to eliminate data redundancies and aggregate data. 
• Develop an incident response plan. Threat intelligence is just the beginning. Organizations also need a corresponding incident response plan to address threats after identification. The plan needs to include contact information for security specialists and next steps for mitigation of the various issues that might arise. At some places, this may involve coordinating efforts between the IT department and a risk management or incident response team.
• Integrate existing tools. When choosing threat intelligence tools, companies should consider how they integrate into their current tech stack, like combining alerts from threat intelligence software with contextual data provided by security information and event management software.

Threat intelligence vs. threat hunting

It's common to confuse threat intelligence with threat hunting, but the two have key differences.

Threat intelligence is the collecting and interpreting of data to avoid potential cybersecurity issues. Threat intelligence aims to assess the threat landscape, understand bad actors’ motives and tactics, and improve a company’s cybersecurity posture.

Threat hunting is a more targeted process. Working from a hypothesis about suspicious activity from threat intelligence, IT teams actively search for the bad actors that have circumvented automated security measures. IT can then stage a quick response and reduce the attack's impact.

Learn about the end-to-end threat intelligence lifecycle.