SOC Threat Intelligence

What is Threat Intelligence in Cybersecurity?

Threat intelligence, also known as Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI), is data from a rich array of sources. The data is put through an analytical and logical process to evaluate it in context so that it can easily be used and understood by cyber threat intelligence analysts. The data may include indicators, mechanisms, implications, and action-oriented advice concerning existing and emerging cybersecurity threats and attacks.

How Does a Threat Intelligence Platform Work?

The CTI works through the six phases of its intelligence life cycle. The following sections will discuss these six phases.  

Direction 

In this phase, you will set goals for your company’s threat intelligence program. To this end, you need to understand:  

• The business processes and digital assets need to be protected.  
• The potential impact of loss in the event of a security incident on those assets and if the business processes are interrupted.  
• Prioritize the assets and business processes that need to be protected first.

Collection 

The collection phase is used to meet the critical requirements of a threat intelligence program. Your efficient threat intelligence platform helps you to collect:  

• Logs and metadata from security devices and internal network 
• Threat Intelligence Feeds (TIF) 
• Data from forums and websites  
• Data from the dark web 
• Data from open-source blogs and news 

Processing  

Plenty of raw data is gathered during the collection phase in the threat intelligence tool. The processing phase also assists in processing all raw data. The effective threat intelligence platform involves various other supporting tools to enhance features, especially Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) tools. The SIEM involves security alerts, data aggregation, advanced analytics, forensics efforts, dashboard, and threat intelligence feeds. The SOAR helps in automating manual, repetitive, and mundane tasks.  

Analysis  

The analysis phase helps in human-based decision-making. The processed information is analyzed and interpreted to provide sound judgments, such as looking for further investigation or implementing remedial measures. 

Dissemination  

In this phase, the output of the finished threat intelligence is disseminated to all stakeholders.  

Feedback 

One must understand the requirements and priorities of security operations teams for whom the threat intelligence is being performed. To this end, their regular feedback is critical to ensure an understanding of the requirements of each team. If the requirements or priorities change, make adjustments accordingly.  

The Importance of Threat Intelligence

Threat intelligence assists enterprises in making faster, more informed, and sound IT security decisions. These decisions allow stakeholders to change their behavior from a reactive to a proactive approach. Cyber threat intelligence can:

• Prevent cyber threats and attacks
• Provide direction on preventive and remedial measures
• Share tactics with the IT community to create collective knowledge

3 Types of Threat Intelligence

The following sections delve into the subcategories of cyber threat intelligence.

Strategic

Strategic threat intelligence is all about a company’s threat landscape. The executive management prepares business strategy based on report findings. It involves threats and vulnerabilities to your organization and prevention measures to thwart future loss.

Tactical

Tactical threat intelligence provides an on-the-ground view that describes granular, atomic indicators related to known attacks. This technique involves machine-to-machine detection of threats. Using this feature, you identify artifacts in your corporate network.

Operational

With operational threat intelligence, you will be aware of the context for security events and incidents. Moreover, for the threat intelligence analyst or incident responder, operational threat intelligence allows them to expose potential risks, pursue previously undiscovered suspicious activities, and perform faster investigations.

Threat Intelligence Feeds

A Threat Intelligence Feed (TIF) is a real-time stream of data whereby security teams can attain actionable information concerning cybersecurity risks and threats. The TIF may include Indicators of Compromise (IoC), such as suspicious domains, malicious IP addresses, logs, and more.

The threat intelligence market incorporates a variety of TIF that can be purchased or attained through threat intelligence subscriptions. Threat intelligence sharing is also a common phenomenon in the threat intelligence industry.

Cyber Threat Intelligence and Incident Response

Incident responders are teams under a lot of pressure among security operation teams in an organization. The reasons are:

• An overwhelming number of cyber incidents
• Sophisticated cyber attacks
• Difficulties in containing those attacks

Incident response teams also face some continuing challenges, including:

• A cybersecurity skills gap
• Innumerable security alerts, mostly false positives, and too little time to respond
• Reactive approaches that execute after the occurrence of the incident

Strengthen Your Incident Response Quality Threat Intelligence

Effective threat intelligence can significantly minimize pressure on incident responders or Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT). Having reliable threat intelligence software can:

• Automatically identify and eliminate false positives or pesky alerts,
• Enrich security alerts with real-time context,
• Gather and compare information from external and internal data sources to discover threat

Cyber Threat Intelligence in a Security Operations Center (SOC)

Security teams in Security Operation Centers (SOC) are pressured due to too many false positive alerts and the long time required to triage these alerts. Due to the alert fatigue, threat analysts have to do additional work, and that time can be spent on other essential tasks.

The good news is that cyber threat intelligence platforms are offering reliable tools to provide an antidote to these problems. Using such a platform, users can:

• Correlate and enrich alerts
• Improve a response time
• Accelerate triage and simplify incident analysis and containment

Integration of Threat Intelligence Within a SOC

Your SOC should allow integration with threat intelligence whereby it can integrate other threat intelligence tools and feeds to itself.  

How Can CYREBRO Help? 

CYREBRO is your cloud-based cybersecurity central command-managed SOC platform where you can integrate all your security events with strategic monitoring, proactive threat intelligence, and expedite incident response efforts.  

Unlike traditional SOC platforms, CYREBRO provides a centralized vision, a single cyber brain that is a proprietary detection algorithm, and transparent accountability that helps you know which security solutions are working for you, what should be done right away, and the overall status of all actions.