Threat intelligence is data that is collected, processed, and analyzed to understand a threat actor’s motives, targets, and attack behaviors. Threat intelligence enables us to make faster, more informed, data-backed security decisions and change their behavior from reactive to proactive in the fight against threat actors.
Threat intelligence is evidence-based knowledge (e.g., context, mechanisms, indicators, implications and action-oriented advice) about existing or emerging menaces or hazards to assets. – Gartner
In the world of cybersecurity, advanced persistent threats (APTs) and defenders are constantly trying to outmaneuver each other. Data on a threat actor’s next move is crucial to proactively tailoring your defenses and preempt future attacks. That's where, Threat Intelligence becomes extremely important for the companies.
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It sheds light on the unknown, enabling security teams to make better decisions.
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It also empowers cyber security stakeholders by revealing adversarial motives and their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).
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It helps security professionals better understand the threat actor’s decision-making process.
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It empowers business stakeholders, such as executive boards, CISOs, CIOs and CTOs; to invest wisely, mitigate risk, become more efficient and make faster decisions.
Threat Intelligence Lifecycle is a process to transform raw data into finished intelligence for decision making and action. You will see many slightly different versions of the intelligence cycle in your research, but the goal is the same, to guide a cybersecurity team through the development and execution of an effective threat intelligence program.
The intelligence cycle provides a framework to enable teams to optimize their resources and effectively respond to the modern threat landscape.
Let’s explore the 6 steps below:
1. Requirements
The requirements stage is crucial to the threat intelligence lifecycle because it sets the roadmap for a specific threat intelligence operation. During this planning stage, the team will agree on the goals and methodology of their intelligence program based on the needs of the stakeholders involved. The team may set out to discover:
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who the attackers are and their motivations
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what is the attack surface
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what specific actions should be taken to strengthen their defenses against a future attack
2. Collection
Once the requirements are defined, the team then sets out to collect the information required to satisfy those objectives. Depending on the goals, the team will usually seek out traffic logs, publicly available data sources, relevant forums, social media, and industry or subject matter experts.
3. Processing
After the raw data has been collected, it will have to be processed into a format suitable for analysis. Most of the time, this entails organizing data points into spreadsheets, decrypting files, translating information from foreign sources, and evaluating the data for relevance and reliability.
4. Analysis
Once the dataset has been processed, the team must then conduct a thorough analysis to find answers to the questions posed in the requirements phase. During the analysis phase, the team also works to decipher the dataset into action items and valuable recommendations for the stakeholders.
5. Dissemination
The dissemination phase requires the threat intelligence team to translate their analysis into a digestible format and present the results to the stakeholders. How the analysis is presented depends on the audience. In most cases the recommendations should be presented concisely, without confusing technical jargon, either in a one-page report or a short slide deck.
6. Feedback
The final stage of the threat intelligence lifecycle involves getting feedback on the provided report to determine whether adjustments need to be made for future threat intelligence operations. Stakeholders may have changes to their priorities, the cadence at which they wish to receive intelligence reports, or how data should be disseminated or presented.
The given diagram presents you a path to uplift your Threat Intelligence capabilities, in a step-by-step fashion. That's why I would advise you to spend some time thinking about all the key points.
This Article Was Written & published by Meena R, Senior Manager - IT, at Luminis Consulting Services Pvt. Ltd, India.
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