Cyber Threat intelligence is data that is collected, processed, and analyzed to understand a threat con actor’s motives, targets, and attack behavior. Threat intelligence enables us to make faster, more informed data-backed security decisions and change their behavior from reactive in the fight against threat actors.

In other words, threat intelligence refers to specific, actionable information, or “intelligence,” about cyber threats. This information may include each detail about a particular threat, such as where it originated, who coded it, who has modified it since, how it’s delivered, the kind of damage it does, what relationships it has with other internet objects and locations, and various other traits and signifiers.

Additionally, threat intelligence also covered the tools and tactics cyber-attackers use, as well as details on specific types of attacks, and dynamic information about potential risks and new risk sources.

Why cyber threat intelligence important?

Cyber threat intelligence is really important in this emerging world of cybersecurity. Cyber attackers find various new tactics to attack in different corners of the society including businesses, individuals, and schools, hospitals, banks, and other sectors of the society.

Organizations are increasingly recognizing the value of threat intelligence, with 72 percent planning to increase threat intelligence spending in upcoming quarters. However, there is a difference between recognizing the value and receiving value. Most organization today are focusing their efforts on only the most basic use cases, such as integrating threat data feeds with existing networks, IPS, firewalls, and SIEMs-without taking full advantage of the insights that intelligence can offer.

Organizations that are still stick to the basic level of threat intelligence are missing out on real advantages that could significantly strengthen their security postures.

Empowers cyber security stakeholders by revealing adversarial motives and their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).

Cyber threat intelligence helps security professionals better understand the threat actor’s decision-making process.

Empowers business stakeholders, such as executive boards, CISOs, and CIOs and CTOs; to invest wisely, mitigate risk, become more efficient and make faster decisions.

Cyber Threat Intelligence Lifecycle 

Threat intelligence lifecycle means collecting data and interpreting them and representing a decision about a cyber-attack. In simple words, as you know that raw data and actionable intelligence are different, and the intelligence lifecycle is a process that transforms raw data into finished intelligence to make a decision and take action. 

You may 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.

Now, businesses need to be very efficient to quickly adapt and take decisive action. The intelligence cycle provides a framework to enable teams to optimize their resources and effectively respond to the modern threat landscape. This cycle consists of six steps resulting in a feedback loop to encourage continuous improvement.

Threat intelligence types

Threat intelligence classified into three subcategories.

• Strategic threat intelligence
• Operational threat intelligence
• Tactical threat intelligence

Strategic intelligence

Strategic intelligence is about collecting and analyzing information over the globe for non-technical audiences. It shows that how global events, foreign policies, and other long-term local and international movements can really impact the cybersecurity of a company.  The main goal of strategic threat intelligence is to comprehend and consider broader trends among threats. Much of strategic threat intelligence data comes from open sources that can be accessed by anyone.

Operational intelligence

Operational threat intelligence refers to physical activity-effectively, operational threat intelligence is similar to forensic analysis, aiming to understand the complete picture of an attack by answering questions around intent, who launched the attack, exactly how and when, what the full timeline looked like, etc. With this process, security teams can gain valuable insight into attackers and their methods, as well as what the organization needs to do to handle these threats more effectively.

Tactical intelligence

Tactical threat intelligence features indicators of compromise (IOCs), such as increased or unexpected file and download activity, and so on. Tactical intelligence outlines the many strategies and procedures used by threat actors to assist security professionals in determining how their businesses are most likely to be targeted.

Who benefits from threat intelligence?

Threat intelligence benefits organizations of all shapes and sizes in different aspects. With the help of threat intelligence, organizations can process threat data and can understand their attackers, respond faster to incidents and proactively get ahead of a threat actor’s next move. Additionally, enterprises with large security teams can also reduce the cost and required skills by leveraging external threat intel and making their analysts more effective.

Threat intelligence offers various benefits to every member of a security team, including:

• IT sector, Analyst
• SOC
• CSIRT 
• Intel Analysis
• Executive Management

Cyber Threat Intelligence Use Cases

There are so many cases for threat intelligence, most rely on the prioritization and efficiency benefits threat intelligence brings.

Incident Response

Because a high proportion of regular, daily alerts turn out to be false positives, threat intelligence is extremely useful for security analysts tasked with incident response. Cyber threat intelligence can also help identify false positives (and dismiss them to minimize distractions), make existing alerts more actionable by adding critical context or level of risk scoring, identify anomalous behavior earlier in the attack lifecycle, and more.

• Security Operations
• Vulnerability Management
• Risk Analysis
• Fraud Prevention
• Security Leadership
• Reducing Third-Party Risk

How Machine learning, and AI helps in Threat Intelligence 

Advanced threat intelligence powered by machine learning can help process the enormous volume of data that is overwhelming traditional IT security infrastructure and human researchers. The right threat intelligence incorporated into devices can reliably block the vast majority of attacks, allowing humans to focus on the few (and most deadly) threats that do get through. . The goal of AI (Artificial Intelligence) is to mimic human intelligence. Machine learning sorts and analyses massive amounts of data at a rate and volume that is simply impossible for humans to handle alone.

Additionally, machine learning can help companies deal with the vast amounts of data collection, data analysis, remediation, and prevention needed to protect companies from today’s emerging threat landscape. However, this cannot replace the human workforce, because togetherness is another key to success, and working in tandem, machine learning, and human researchers can keep the organization safe.

Final Touch

Hey guys! This was the guide about “what is cyber threat intelligence.” Cyber threat is very crucial as it collects, analyzes and presents data that help you to understand attackers.  I hope this guide would tell you everything about cyber threat intelligence. If you still have any queries regarding this article, please let us know in the comment section below.