Threat Intelligence Platform

What is a Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP)?

A Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP) is a software solution that collects, organizes, and analyzes data about cybersecurity threats from various sources.

Sources often include commercial threat intel feeds, OSINT, as well as internal logs.

By providing actionable information about threats, malware and fraud, security teams can effectively prioritize remediation efforts.

Why Do Organizations Need a Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP)?

Threat intelligence often comes from hundreds of different sources. Manually analyzing this information isn’t very efficient. Thus, a technical solution is needed. TIPs provide several important features, including:

• Proactive Threat Detection: TIPs help identify potential threats before they can cause damage.
• Efficient Resource Allocation: By prioritizing threats based on their severity and relevance, TIPs help security teams focus on the most critical issues.
• Improved Response Capabilities: Automation features in TIPs allow for faster and more effective responses to threats. This reduces the time and effort required to mitigate risks.

How Threat Intelligence Works

Here’s a high level over of how threat intelligence works:

• Data Collection: Information is gathered from a variety of sources, including open-source intelligence (OSINT), commercial threat intelligence feeds, internal server logs like firewalls and intrusion detection systems.
• Data Aggregation: The collected data is aggregated into a centralized platform. Combining data from multiple sources give you a comprehensive view of potential threats.
• Normalization and Enrichment: The raw data is processed and normalized into a standard format, making it easier to analyze. It’s also enriched with additional context, such as the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by threat actors, and related indicators of compromise (IOCs).
• Analysis and Correlation: Machine learning or AI is often used to identify patterns, trends, and relationships within the data.
• Threat Prioritization: Based on the analysis, threats are prioritized according to their severity and relevance to the organization.
• Actionable Intelligence: The insights derived from the analysis are translated into actionable intelligence. This can include recommendations for mitigating risks, alerts about specific threats, and automated responses such as blocking malicious IP addresses or URLs.
• Automation and Orchestration: Automated workflows can be set up to respond to certain types of threats immediately. Often this requires integration with other security tools.
• Visualization and Reporting: The analyzed data can be presented in visual formats like dashboards or reports, making it easier for security teams to track changes over time.

Four Types Threat Intelligence

Threat intelligence can be categorized into four different types based on the nature of the information and how its used.

1. Strategic Threat Intelligence: High-level information about the overall threat landscape, aimed at senior executives and decision-makers. Some examples include reports on emerging threats and trends or analysis reports of how geopolitical events might impact your organization.
2. Tactical Threat Intelligence: Detailed information on threat actors’ tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). This type of intelligence is aimed at security managers and team leads. Some examples include descriptions of common phishing tactics used by specific threat groups or case studies of successful cyberattacks, detailing how they were executed.
3. Operational Threat Intelligence: Information on specific, imminent threats to the organization. This type is aimed at security operations teams. Some examples include alerts about employee, customer, or vendor leaked credentials. IOCs such as suspicious IP addresses, domain names, and file hashes.
4. Technical Threat Intelligence: Technical details about cyber threats. These are usually highly granular and specific. This type is intended for use by the OpSec team for implementing defenses. Examples include IP addresses and URLs associated with command-and-control servers. File hashes and signatures of known malware.

Threat Intelligence Platform Use Cases

There are different uses for leveraging Threat Intelligence Platforms. Here are some of the most common use cases:

• Threat Detection and Analysis: TIPs help identify new and emerging threats that could impact the organization by analyzing threat data to detect IOCs and patterns associated with a given exploit.
• Incident Response: These platforms significantly improve the speed and effectiveness of incident response efforts by providing actionable intelligence to security teams during an incident.
• Brand Protection: TIPs help protect the organization’s brand and reputation by monitoring for threats such as phishing sites, fake social media profiles, and brand impersonation.
• Supply Chain Security: TIPs monitor your supply chain risk by identifying threats to your third-party vendors and partners.
• Threat Hunting: TIPs enable proactive searching for threats within an organization’s network by identifying unusual patterns or anomalies that may indicate a hidden threat.
• Vulnerability Management: They assist in prioritizing vulnerabilities based on threat intelligence by identifying which vulnerabilities are being actively exploited in the wild.
• Security Operations Center (SOC) Enhancement: TIPs improve the efficiency and effectiveness of SOC activities. They do this by integrating threat intelligence into SOC workflows, providing context for alerts, reducing false positives, and streamlining investigations.
• Fraud Prevention: They assist in detecting and preventing fraud by identifying fraudulent activities, such as account takeover attempts or transaction fraud, and automating the fix.
• Regulatory Compliance: TIPs help with compliance with cybersecurity regulations by meeting regulatory requirements for threat monitoring, reporting, and risk management.
• Executive Reporting: They provide insights and updates to executive leadership by generating high-level reports that summarize the threat landscape and significant incidents that occurred.