Jul 8, 2024

What is Cyber Threat Intelligence: Lifecycle, Types, and Benefits

Threat intelligence is that crucial part of cybersecurity that provides security teams with actionable insights into potential threats helping them detect early and respond effectively to security risks.

What is cyber threat intelligence?

Cyber threat intelligence is the process of gathering, analyzing, and utilizing information about current and potential threats to enhance and expand an organization’s cybersecurity strategy. Good threat intelligence provides security teams with insights into the motives, targets, and attack behaviors of threat actors, enabling them to make informed, proactive decisions to defend against cyber threats.

Threat intelligence data includes evidence-based knowledge, such as Indicators of Compromise (IoCs), Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs), and actionable advice that helps security teams anticipate and mitigate risks.

How does threat intelligence differ from general cybersecurity practices?

Threat intelligence (TI) differs from general cybersecurity practices in three primary aspects: focus, scope, and approach. While general cybersecurity practices focus on a reactive approach to protecting and responding to threats, threat intelligence enables a more strategic and proactive approach to cybersecurity, focusing on insights used to anticipate and prevent potential attacks.

differences between general cybersecurity and threat intelligence

Importance and benefits of threat intelligence

Threat intelligence improves threat detection. At its core, threat intelligence provides context to security alerts which helps distinguish between benign anomalies and genuine threats. That has a direct impact on the speed and accuracy with which security teams can detect and respond to real security threats.

Threat intelligence enables proactive defense. Its proactive approach transforms security operations from reactive to preventative. Using intelligence data, security teams can anticipate potential threats and implement measures to prevent attacks before they occur. It’s also important to note that TI can support vulnerability management by identifying which vulnerabilities are being actively exploited at any given time, ensuring that resources are focused on addressing the most critical threats first.

Threat intelligence leads to overall strategic decision-making. Looking into the broader threat landscape, executives have the information they need to allocate resources effectively and prioritize security investments based on the most significant risks.

Who benefits from threat intelligence?

Whether we are talking about a startup or a Fortune 500 company operating in the manufacturing or retail sector, threat intelligence helps organizations process threat data to understand their attackers, respond faster to incidents, and anticipate future threats.

More specifically, for small and midsize businesses (SMBs), TI provides a level of protection that might otherwise be difficult to implement and sustain. Large enterprises, on the other hand, can leverage external threat intelligence to reduce costs, streamline required skills, and enhance the effectiveness of security analysts.

When it comes to who or which team benefits most from threat intelligence, as seen in the graph below, threat intelligence offers different sets of benefits to different teams within an organization.

Threat intelligence lifecycle

As seen in the diagram below, the threat intelligence lifecycle involves several stages, from gathering information about potential threats to taking action to mitigate those threats.

Let’s break down the details of the different stages.

Planning and direction

At this stage, security teams need to establish the goals and objectives of the threat intelligence program, including the types of threats the organization needs to monitor, the level of detail required, and how the intelligence will be used to support security operations.

To effectively plan a threat intelligence program, there are several aspects to be factored in at this stage. The industry an organization operates in, the type of data they handle, regulatory requirements, and the specific threats they are most concerned about are all important factors that need to be addressed when planning threat intelligence initiatives.

Data collection

Data collection is one of the most critical stages of the threat intelligence lifecycle. The diversity and quality of the data teams collect at this stage will determine the effectiveness and accuracy of all the following stages of the lifecycle.

During this stage, threat intelligence analysts gather data from various sources, including open source intelligence (OSINT), commercial feeds, government agencies, information-sharing groups, and internal security tools and logs. Collection methods also vary depending on the data sources and available tooling and include automated data feeds, manual research, threat hunting, as well as cross-collaboration information sharing.

Given that data collection is a huge part of the threat intelligence lifecycle and it encompasses a great number of processes and possible data sources, we will be covering this topic in more detail in a future article.

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Data processing

Once the threat intelligence data is collected, it is processed to extract information relevant to the organization and identify potential threats. At this stage, security teams analyze the raw data, correlate different sources of information, and identify patterns or trends that may indicate malicious activity. Part of the data processing stage is also validating the accuracy and reliability of the information collected and prioritizing threats based on their severity and relevance.

Data analysis

After the initial data processing and validation are complete, threat intelligence analysts examine the data in greater detail to understand the nature of the TTPs used by threat actors. In this stage, analysts focus on identifying IoCs, malware signatures, attack vectors, and other key characteristics of the threats.

Dissemination of information

Obtaining valuable threat intelligence information is only part of a successful threat hunt or a proactive security strategy. Once analyzed, threat intelligence must be disseminated to the appropriate stakeholders — SOC, incident responders, executive leadership, etc. — within the organization. Dissemination of threat information often takes the form of reports, alerts, briefings, or automated notifications, depending on the urgency and severity of the threats.

Integration of information

The next-to-last stage of the threat intelligence lifecycle is integrating the already analyzed and curated threat information into existing security tools and processes. This integration of information is what enables proactive threat detection and response, improves security posture, and reduces the risk of cyber attacks.

To integrate threat information, security teams feed intelligence into Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems, Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDPS), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions, or firewalls.

Action

The seventh and final stage of the threat intelligence lifecycle is all about taking action to mitigate the identified threats. There are a great number of appropriate security actions based on threat intelligence, and listing them all falls out of the scope of this article. But to name a few, at this stage, security teams will be tasked with implementing security controls, applying patches or updates to vulnerable systems, blocking malicious IP addresses or domains, and conducting incident response activities.

Components of threat intelligence data

We talked a lot about threat intelligence data and how it is treated during the different stages of the threat intelligence lifecycle. But let’s take a minute to explore its core components.

Indicators of Compromise

Indicators of Compromise, or IoCs, are pieces of evidence that indicate malicious activity or potential security breaches within a network or system. Security teams identify IoCs by analyzing various sources of threat intelligence.

IP addresses: Suspicious or known malicious IP addresses used by threat actors to communicate with compromised systems or deliver malware.

Domain names: Malicious domains used for hosting phishing websites, distributing malware, or conducting command and control (C2) communications.

File hashes: Unique cryptographic hashes — for example, MD5 or SHA-256 — of files associated with malware or malicious software.

URLs: Suspicious or malicious URLs used in phishing emails, drive-by downloads, or other cyber attacks.

Email addresses: Known malicious email addresses used for phishing campaigns or other malicious activities.

Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures

The concept of Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures, or TTPs for short, refers to the methods, strategies, and behaviors used by malicious actors to carry out cyber attacks. Understanding TTPs is crucial. By analyzing TTPs, security teams can identify patterns of malicious behavior, anticipate attacker tactics, and develop proactive defenses to mitigate emerging threats.

Let’s break down the main three components.

Tactics: High-level objectives or goals pursued by malicious actors during an attack. Common tactics include reconnaissance, initial access, execution, persistence, privilege escalation, lateral movement, exfiltration, and impact.

Techniques: Specific methods or procedures used by malicious actors to accomplish their tactical objectives. Techniques encompass a wide range of activities, including exploiting known vulnerabilities, deploying malware, social engineering, credential theft, and data exfiltration.

Procedures: Detailed step-by-step instructions or workflows followed by malicious actors to execute their successfully techniques. Procedures may include specific commands, tools, malware configurations, and attack sequences used in cyber attacks.

tactics, techniques, and procedures of cyber attacks

Attribution information

Attribution information provides insight into the identity, motives, and capabilities of malicious actors. Attribution data may include information about the profile of malicious actors, known affiliations, geopolitical context, and historical attack patterns associated with specific threat groups or nation-state actors.

Attribution information provides security teams with insight into the motivation and behavior of malicious actors. This helps assess the severity and likelihood of potential threats and tailor their response strategies accordingly.

Vulnerability information

Vulnerability information identifies security weaknesses or flaws in software, hardware, or configurations that could be exploited by threat actors to compromise systems or networks. The vulnerability data security teams are interested in Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) identifiers, severity ratings, affected products, and available patches or mitigations.

Vulnerability data is undeniably one of the most critical components of threat intelligence data. Monitoring vulnerability data allows organizations to prioritize patch management efforts, implement compensating controls, and mitigate the risk of exploitation by known vulnerabilities.

The 3 types of threat intelligence

The three types of threat intelligence — tactical intelligence, operational intelligence, and strategic intelligence — represent a maturity curve that covers different levels of information, from high-level and non-technical to highly technical details on the nature of specific attacks. This curation of information aims to provide relevant context, cater to different audiences, and, naturally, the more curated the information, the costlier it gets.

Let’s take a closer look at the three different types.

Strategic threat intelligence

Focusing on the bigger picture, strategic threat intelligence helps organizations understand the wider threat landscape and potential risks to their operations. It provides insights into the motivations, tactics, and capabilities of malicious actors and aids in the development of long-term strategies to mitigate threats effectively.

Strategic threat intelligence is essential for executives and senior leadership to make informed decisions about cybersecurity policies, investments, and overall risk management strategies.

Operational threat intelligence

The goal of operational threat intelligence is to help security teams prioritize their efforts, focus on the most critical threats, and effectively allocate resources to patching, monitoring, and other security measures. f helps security teams facing their organization. By understanding the specific risks posed by different vulnerabilities and attack vectors, organizations can.

Operational threat intelligence is crucial for security analysts, vulnerability management teams, and other frontline security personnel responsible for protecting an organization’s networks, systems, and data from cyber threats.

Tactical threat intelligence

Tactical threat intelligence primarily focuses on the specific TTPs used by malicious actors. It provides detailed information about recent or ongoing cyber threats and is a unique mix of proactive and reactive cybersecurity.

While incident responders need tactical threat intelligence to react and mitigate ongoing cyber threats, Security Operations teams use tactical intelligence to stay ahead of emerging threats and proactively defend against cyber attacks.

Practical applications of threat intelligence

While there are many ways to leverage threat intelligence to improve security within an organization, there are a few use cases that we see more often than others.

Threat intelligence for investigations

When encountering a suspicious or abnormal event, leverage threat intelligence services to query the aggressive IP address and gather valuable data that helps determine whether the incident is a true positive, a false positive, or warrants further investigation.

For instance, if a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or another perimeter defense mechanism detects a new or popular vulnerability, gathering information about the source IP can guide the appropriate course of action. It’s essential to understand whether the IP belongs to a security vendor or a legitimate security scanner (such as Shodan or Censys) that is merely identifying potentially vulnerable systems.

The “bad” scenario is that this IP is associated with well-known malicious behavior attempting to exploit the vulnerability for initial access. In more intriguing cases, an entirely unknown IP might indicate a targeted attack specifically aimed at a specific organization or industry vertical. Threat intelligence is also valuable in ruling out potential false positives — for example, if the IP is associated with the Content Delivery Network (CDN) in use, it might point to a misconfigured security device rather than a genuine threat.

Reducing alert fatigue

On systems exposed to the internet, countless IP addresses will probe them daily, regardless of their strategic value or attack surface. These internet probes, often considered irrelevant from a security perspective, still burden analysts tasked with reviewing incoming security events.

If, for example, someone is probing a website or an exposed SSH service, knowing the reputation and typical behavior of the probing IP can be invaluable. Without threat intelligence to filter out background noise and highlight unusual and potentially dangerous probes, SOC teams can be overwhelmed by thousands (or more!) of alerts, many of which may stem from IPs searching for outdated vulnerabilities that pose no real threat but create significant annoyance.

Pre-emptively blocking bad actors

Threat intelligence’s proactive nature can also be leveraged to pre-emptively block malicious actors. By gathering, classifying, and inventorying malevolent IPs, organizations can create blocklists that significantly reduce the number of probing attempts hitting their systems.

Implementing these blocklists at the network perimeter level can result in a substantial reduction in malicious traffic — often more than 50% — which not only decreases the workload on SOC teams but also conserves hardware resources allocated for running these services. Customizing blocklists to fit a company’s specific usage and needs can be a powerful tool in enhancing overall security.

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Improving threat hunting

Threat hunters use threat intelligence to enhance their threat detection capabilities. With a global increase in credential reuse and phishing, and info-stealers going rampant, some intrusions may not leave obvious break-in traces because it’s possible attackers use valid credentials. In such cases, cross-referencing seemingly legitimate activities against known suspicious IPs can reveal when something is amiss.

For instance, if an IP from a shady, free proxy provider successfully logs into a company webmail or if an IP associated with an outdated WordPress site logs into the SSH services, it signals potential trouble. To battle those scenarios, threat hunters enrich their SIEM events with contextual threat intelligence, either through API calls for limited volumes or offline replication for more significant data sets. This enrichment helps detect and respond to threats more effectively, even when attackers use legitimate credentials to gain access.

How different sectors can leverage threat intelligence

The proactive aspect of TI brings benefits to organizations across all sectors and industries. Adopting a proactive, actionable threat intelligence program can help organizations and businesses safeguard sensitive data as well as strengthen their overall security posture and resilience against evolving cyber threats.

With a number of cybersecurity regulations being enforced worldwide — including the new European regulation on Network and Information Security (NIS2) and the US President’s Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity — now more than ever, businesses and organizations in all industries are legally required to pay close attention to the threat intelligence landscape and take measures to proactively address threats.

Let’s break it down and see how different sectors can leverage threat intelligence.

benefits of threat intelligence by sector

Finance sector

Preventing frauds: For the finance sector, identifying IoCs and anomalies in transaction patterns is key. Those have the potential to significantly increase operational costs and put customer assets at risk.

Complying with regulatory frameworks: It’s not a secret that the finance sector is one of the most regulated sectors. Monitoring and reporting on potential threats and vulnerabilities helps financial institutions ensure that security measures align with industry standards.

Benefiting from advanced threat detection: Financial institutions are prime targets for sophisticated attacks. Threat intelligence has a direct impact on enabling financial institutions to enhance their security measures and protect sensitive financial data from breaches.

Healthcare sector

Protecting patient data: Healthcare organizations manage vast amounts of sensitive patient information, and they are liable under certain laws and regulations when it comes to protecting their patients’ data. Treat intelligence helps safeguard this data against breaches and unauthorized access.

Enhancing the security of medical devices: The proliferation of connected medical devices introduces new vulnerabilities and risks similar to those of IoT devices, only with a much grater impact. By adopting a TI program, healthcare institutions can identify threats targeting these devices, ensuring that they operate securely and do not become vectors for attacks.

Ensuring continuous operation: Healthcare operations depend on continuous access to data and systems. By leveraging threat intelligence, institutions can prevent disruptions caused by cyber attacks and ensure that critical healthcare services remain available and operational.

Government sector

Safeguarding national security: In order to understand the tactics and objectives of malicious actors and develop countermeasures, government agencies use threat intelligence to protect national security by identifying and mitigating cyber threats from nation-state actors.

Protecting critical infrastructure: Critical infrastructure, such as water supplies or power grids, is not immune to cyber attacks. Threat intelligence provides insights into potential threats and vulnerabilities that can ensure the resilience and reliability of those essential services.

Developing policies and strategies: Governments use threat intelligence to inform cybersecurity policies and strategies. By understanding the threat landscape, policymakers can develop effective frameworks and regulations to enhance national cybersecurity.

Retail sector

Protecting against frauds: Similar to what we discussed for the finance sector, threat intelligence plays a key role in helping retailers detect fraudulent activities, such as credit card fraud and account takeovers, by identifying suspicious behaviors and patterns.

Enhancing supply chain security: Retailers rely on complex supply chains. By leveraging threat intelligence, they can identify threats targeting supply chain operations, ensuring the security and integrity of products and services.

Protecting customer data: Retailers are liable under certain regulations when it comes to protecting their customers’ data. Failure to comply can result in sizable fines, not to mention loss of customer trust. Threat intelligence helps retailers safeguard customer data from breaches and unauthorized access and ensures that sensitive information, such as payment details, is protected.

Energy sector

Safeguarding Operational Technology (OT): The energy sector uses OT to control and monitor physical processes. Using threat intelligence, entities within the energy sector and identify and mitigate threats targeting OT systems, ensuring the security and continuity of energy production and distribution.

Maximizing resilience against attacks: The proactivity of threat intelligence provides insights into potential threats against energy infrastructure that can enhance resilience and prevent disruptions caused by cyber attacks.

Enhancing incident response measures: In the event of a cyber incident, threat intelligence offers actionable insights to quickly respond and recover, minimizing downtime and ensuring the stability of energy supplies.

Developing a threat intelligence program

After completing an overview of all the different aspects, processes, and benefits of threat intelligence, naturally, the last question to address is how to put theory into practice and develop a threat intelligence program.

Designing and implementing a threat intelligence program involves several critical steps with each step worth its own article. For now, here is a very compact overview of those steps.

Defining objectives: Draw a clear outline of the threat intelligence program’s goals and objectives. This includes understanding what the organization wants to achieve and how threat intelligence will support those goals.

Assessing current capabilities: Evaluate existing security measures and capabilities to identify gaps and areas for improvement.

Developing a framework: Establish a structured framework for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating threat intelligence. This should include policies, procedures, and workflows.

Selecting the right tools and technologies: Choose the right tools and technologies to support the threat intelligence program. SIEM systems, threat intelligence feeds and platforms, and data analysis tools are a must-have.

Building a team: Assemble a team of skilled professionals who can manage and execute the threat intelligence program. This includes analysts, researchers, and incident responders. For smaller organizations or for organizations with severe budget limitations, it is possible, at least to some extent) to supplement the lack of specialized personnel with the right tools.

Integrating TI: Integrate threat intelligence into existing security operations and workflows and ensure that threat intelligence is actionable and used effectively by all relevant stakeholders.

Implementing continuous improvements: Regularly review and update the threat intelligence program to adapt to evolving threats and improve its effectiveness.

Challenges and the future of the threat intelligence landscape

Threat intelligence is not without its own challenges many of them occurring even before fully integrating and utilizing TI services. Here are some key hurdles organizations face:

Ingesting and managing logs

One of the primary challenges lies in the ingestion and management of logs. Organizations typically adopt one of two approaches:

SIEM: Reading logs and storing them for future analysis or queries. The advantage here is having a comprehensive historical record, but the sheer volume of data can be overwhelming and difficult to manage.
Stream: Reading logs in real time and retaining only those related to suspicious events — as seen in solutions like CrowdSec. While this approach reduces data volume, it requires robust real-time analysis capabilities to ensure that critical events are not missed.

Developing effective detection rules

Once logs are ingested and analyzed, the next challenge is developing effective detection rules. This essentially translates to finding the right balance between false positives and false negatives to create rules that are both accurate and relevant.

Achieving this balance is critical, as overly sensitive rules can lead to alert fatigue, while overly lenient rules may miss significant threats. Fine-tuning detection rules requires continuous effort and expertise.

Filtering noise and identifying relevant events

After setting up detection rules, the next challenge is cutting through the noise to identify relevant events. Every exposed system will inevitably face hundreds (if not more) of daily probes, many of which are benign or irrelevant.

The challenge is to distinguish which alerts signify genuine threats. This requires advanced filtering mechanisms and contextual analysis to ensure that security teams can focus on truly significant events.

Finding people with expertise

Another major challenge is the availability of human resources to exploit threat intelligence effectively. Analyzing and interpreting TI data requires skilled professionals who understand both the technical aspects of cybersecurity and the specific context of their organization’s threat landscape.

However, there is a widespread shortage of qualified cybersecurity experts, making it difficult for organizations to build and maintain teams capable of leveraging threat intelligence to its full potential.

Future trends and the evolving landscape of threat intelligence

One of the recurring trends in threat intelligence is the heightened activity of cybercriminals, especially during major global events such as conflicts, the Olympic Games, elections, and the rise of populist governments. These events often spur hacktivist activities and targeted attacks, making the need to anticipate and mitigate these threats an absolute necessity.

Organizations must be vigilant and proactive in monitoring threat landscapes during such periods to block malicious activities effectively.

A rising trend in the current threat intelligence landscape is the widespread shift towards Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), which marks a significant change in how organizations approach security. As VPNs become obsolete, ZTNA relies heavily on the ability to authenticate users accurately, making identity verification a critical aspect of security. This shift increases the risk of stolen identities, as attackers will focus more on compromising user credentials.

Threat intelligence must evolve to include advanced identity protection and monitoring mechanisms to counteract this increased risk of compromised credentials.

One of the newest and arguably most interesting (yet worrying) trends in the current landscape is how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing both cyber attacks and defenses. AI-driven attacks are becoming more sophisticated and can execute at speeds that outpace traditional response mechanisms.

The development of real-time, AI-powered countermeasures that are proactive rather than reactive is no longer a nice to have — it is a necessity. Predictive threat intelligence, which anticipates potential attacks before they occur, will become essential.

Organizations will need to leverage AI and machine learning to predict attack vectors and develop strategies to mitigate threats before they can inflict damage. Proactive data collection and analysis will be crucial in enabling security systems to anticipate and counteract attacks in their early stages.

Making a difference using the power of the crowd

CrowdSec believes that the best way to defend against cyber threats is to work together by sharing information and collaborating as one. This is what we call the Network Effect of Cyber Threat Intelligence.

The vast CrowdSec Network of real users, operating real applications on real servers, detects attacks in record time and blocks the malicious IPs responsible. The attack signals shared by CrowdSec users via the CrowdSec Security Engine, CrowdSec’s open source IDPS, are then analyzed and curated, eventually transforming this crowd-powered intelligence into ultra-curated blocklists and CTI feeds.

Learn more about the Network Effect and how crowd-powered threat intelligence can help you protect your systems.