Threat Intelligence
Threat Intelligence
Threat intelligence is actionable knowledge about adversaries, their TTPs, IOCs and campaigns to inform defence strategies.[12] Strategic TI advises board-level risk decisions; operational TI powers SOC workflows; tactical TI feeds detection rules. STIX/TAXII standards automate intel sharing across platforms and communities. ROI depends on relevance, timeliness and confidence scoring to reduce alert fatigue.
Threat Intelligence: Turning Signals into Decisions
Definition
Threat intelligence is curated, validated knowledge about adversaries—their motives, infrastructure, tools, and behaviors—structured to drive concrete defensive decisions. It converts raw indicators and research into actionable changes to controls, detections, and risk posture.
Why it matters
In practice, TI shrinks dwell time and focuses scarce analyst hours. By aligning detections to real campaigns and relevant sectors, teams block what’s active instead of chasing noise. For startups and fast‑growing orgs, TI informs which controls to fund first and which business risks to rehearse.
Trends shaping risk
Cloud and SaaS shift the battleground to identity, OAuth grants, and supply‑chain trust. Remote work broadens phishing and token theft. Automated attack kits and marketplaces compress the time from research to widespread exploitation—especially for Zero‑Day payloads.
Core methods and outputs
- Strategic: landscape and actor capability assessments for executives
- Operational: TTPs, SIGMA/YARA/KQL, and control recommendations
- Tactical: IOCs, domains, hashes, and JA3/JA4 fingerprints
Narrative: A sector‑specific brief delivers hunting queries and WAF/EDR rules mapped to current actor tradecraft.
Who benefits/targets
Security operations, detection engineering, incident response, and risk teams. SMBs gain focus by filtering feeds to business‑relevant tech stacks; regulated industries align TI to compliance‑critical systems.
Why it’s hard
Indicators expire quickly; generic feeds cause alert fatigue. Tooling gaps make it hard to translate research into detector content. Best practices: relevance filtering, confidence scoring, automation from feed → rule, and continuous validation with adversary emulation.
Institutional/advanced solutions
Build an intel cycle: requirements, collection, processing, analysis, dissemination. Integrate TI into SIEM/EDR/WAF and ticketing. Use enrichment, sandboxing, graph correlation, and sharing communities. Cross‑link with YARA Rules for rapid family coverage.
Actionable guidance
Define top risks, subscribe to sector sources, and automate conversion to rules. Track impact with blocked events and hunt hits. Review quarterly to retire low‑value feeds and expand technique‑level coverage.
FAQ
What makes TI “actionable”?
It directly changes a control, detection, or decision—e.g., a WAF rule, an EDR query, or a patch priority—not just an FYI report.
How do we avoid feed overload?
Set collection requirements, score relevance/confidence, and suppress stale indicators. Automate feed → rule pipelines with review gates.
How often should intel be refreshed?
Continuously for IOCs; weekly for TTP updates; quarterly for strategic actor/sector outlooks.
Which teams own TI?
Small orgs: SOC with a TI champion. Larger orgs: a CTI function that feeds SOC, IR, engineering, and risk.
What’s a quick win this month?
Pick one actor relevant to your stack, generate three hunts and two prevention rules mapped to its TTPs, and measure hits/blocks.