Threat intelligence is the data analysis using tools and techniques to produce meaningful information about existing or emerging threats aimed at the organisation, which aids in risk mitigation. To combat attacks, Cyber threat Intelligence enables organisations to make faster, more informed security decisions and shift their behaviour from reactive to proactive.

What is cyber threat intelligence, and why do you require it?

Cyber Intelligence is the ability to prevent or mitigate cyber-attacks by studying threat data and providing information on adversaries. It aids in the identification, preparation, and prevention of attacks by providing information on attackers, their motivations, and their capabilities.

Threat intelligence equips organisations with predictive capabilities to be proactive rather than reactive in the face of future cyber-attacks. It is impossible to combat cyber-attacks effectively unless you understand security vulnerabilities, threat indicators, and how threats are carried out. Using cyber intelligence security professionals can help prevent and contain cyber-attacks faster, potentially saving money. Threat intelligence has the potential to improve enterprise security at all levels, including network and cloud security.

What Is the Objective of Threat Intelligence?

Threat intelligence provides organisations with valuable information about these threats, allowing them to build effective defence mechanisms and mitigate risks that could cause financial and reputational harm. Threat intelligence is the predictive capability to defend against future attacks that the organisation is vulnerable to, allowing them to proactively tailor their defences and prevent future attacks.

What is the role of a Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst?

A cybersecurity professional who monitors and analyses external cyber threat data to provide actionable intelligence is known as a cyber intelligence analyst. These experts triage data from various threat intelligence sources to study the pattern of attacks, their methodology, motive, severity, as well as threat landscape. This data is then analysed and filtered to generate threat intelligence feeds and reports that assist management (security officer) in making organisational security decisions. These people are frequently Certified Threat Intelligence Analysts who have both the knowledge and skills required for the job.

What Are the Different Kinds of Threat Intelligence?

Cyber Threat Intelligence is divided into strategic, tactical, technical, and operational categories. 

Strategic Threat Intelligence

Strategic threat intelligence gives an overview of the threat landscape for the organisation. It is less technical in nature and is intended primarily for executive-level security professionals to drive high-level organisational strategy based on the findings in the reports. Strategic threat intelligence, in theory, provides insights such as vulnerabilities and risks associated with the organisation's threat landscape, as well as preventive actions, threat actors, their goals, and the severity of potential attacks.

Tactical Threat Intelligence

Tactical threat intelligence contains more specific details on threat actors' TTP and is primarily used by the security team to understand attack vectors. Intelligence provides them with information on how to develop a defence strategy to mitigate those attacks. The report describes the vulnerabilities in security systems that attackers could exploit, as well as how to detect such attacks. The discovery is used to strengthen the existing security controls/defence mechanism and aids in the removal of network vulnerabilities.

Technical Threat Intelligence

Technical threat intelligence concentrates on specific clues or evidence of an attack and builds a foundation for analysing such attacks. An analyst from Threat Intelligence searches for indicators of compromise (IOCs), which include reported IP addresses, the content of phishing emails, malware samples, as well as fraudulent URLs. The timing of sharing technical intelligence is critical because IOCs like malicious IP addresses or fraudulent URLs become obsolete in a matter of days.

Operational Threat Intelligence

Operational threat intelligence focuses on attack knowledge. It provides detailed information about the nature, motive, timing, and execution of an attack. Ideally, the information is gathered from hacker chat rooms or their online discussions via infiltration, making it difficult to obtain.

Difficulties in gathering operational intelligence

• Threats typically communicate via encrypted or private chat rooms, and access to these channels is difficult.

• It is difficult to manually gather relevant intelligence from massive amounts of data in chat rooms or other communication channels.

• Threat groups may use ambiguous and confusing language, making it impossible for anyone to understand their conversation.

What is the definition of a Cyber Threat Intelligence Program?

Instead of viewing thousands of Threat Intelligence Feeds separately, the Cyber Threat Intelligence programme combines them into a single feed to enable consistent characterization and categorization of cyber threat events and to identify trends or changes in cyber adversary activities. The programme describes cyber threat activity in a consistent manner that allows for efficient information sharing and threat analysis. It helps the threat intelligence team by comparing the feed to internal telemetry and generating alerts.

About DriveIT

DriveIT Technologies is a group of cyber security enablers. We transform cyber security issues into innovative solutions that meet our clients' needs. One of our primary strategies is to collaborate closely with our clients to secure and optimise their IT infrastructure, which is critical to the operation of their primary businesses. The client's IT infrastructure will be secure, redundant, stable, and recoverable with the help of the services we provide, providing them with a flexible strategy to run their core businesses effectively and affordably.