Cybersecurity is a constantly growing field that requires organizations to stay on top of the latest threats and trends.
However, it can be challenging to keep track of the vast amount of information and data generated daily by cybercriminals and security researchers. That’s where the cyber threat intelligence team comes in.
Cyber threat intelligence is information that helps organizations better protect against cyberattacks. It includes data and analysis that give security teams a comprehensive view of the threat landscape so they can make informed decisions about how to prepare for, detect, and respond to attacks.
CTI also enables security professionals to understand the motives, targets, and behaviours of threat actors, tailor their defences, and proactively preempt future attacks.
We will cover some of the best practices and tips for starting a CTI team from scratch.
What does a threat intelligence team do?
A threat intelligence team is a group of security professionals responsible for collecting, processing, analyzing, and disseminating threat intelligence data. A threat intelligence team can perform various functions, such as:
- Collecting threat intelligence data from various sources, such as OSINT, threat intelligence feeds, in-house analysis, etc.
- Processing threat intelligence data by validating, enriching, filtering, and prioritizing the raw data
- Analyzing threat intelligence data by identifying patterns, trends, correlations, and anomalies in the data
- Disseminating threat intelligence data by producing and delivering threat intelligence products and services, such as reports, alerts, indicators, etc.
- Applying threat intelligence data by using the data to inform and support security decisions and actions, such as detection, response, prevention, etc.
A threat intelligence team can also collaborate with other security teams, such as incident response, vulnerability management, risk management, etc., to provide them with relevant and actionable threat intelligence.
Check Out: Cyber Threat Intelligence Types
What are the benefits of CTI?
Cyber threat intelligence team can help organizations to:
- Shed light on the unknown and reduced uncertainty. CTI can provide valuable insights into the current and emerging threats that your organization may face, as well as the vulnerabilities and risks you may have. It can assist you in prioritizing your security initiatives and optimising your resource allocation.
- Empower cyber security stakeholders by revealing adversarial motives and their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).cyber threat intelligence team can help you understand who is behind the attacks, what they want, how they operate, and what they are likely to do next. It can help you anticipate their moves, counter their strategies, and disrupt their operations.
- Help security professionals better understand the threat actor’s decision-making process. CTI can help you analyze the threat actor’s goals, capabilities, constraints, and preferences.
- It can aid in recognizing their strengths and weaknesses and identifying their opportunities and risks. It can help you design more effective and tailored responses and mitigations.
- Empower business stakeholders, such as executive boards, CISOs, CIOs and CTOs, to invest wisely, mitigate risk, become more efficient and make faster decisions. CTI can help you communicate the value and impact of security to your business leaders and stakeholders. It can help you justify your security budget, align your security goals with your business objectives, measure your security performance, and demonstrate your return on investment.
What are the sources of cyber threat intelligence teams?
CTI can be derived from various sources, such as:
- Open-source threat intelligence (OSINT) is publicly available information from websites, blogs, social media, forums, etc. OSINT can provide a wealth of information about threat actors, their activities, tools, targets, etc. However, OSINT can also be noisy, inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated. Therefore, it requires careful verification and validation before using it.
- Threat intelligence feeds are curated data streams from vendors or organizations that provide information about emerging or existing threats. Threat intelligence feeds can provide timely and actionable information about indicators of compromise (IOCs), such as IP addresses, domains, URLs, hashes, etc. However, threat intelligence feeds can also be generic, irrelevant, or redundant. Therefore, they require careful filtering and prioritization before using them.
- In-house analysis is the process of collecting, processing and analyzing raw data from internal sources, such as logs, alerts, incidents, etc. In-house analysis can provide unique and contextual information about your environment, assets, vulnerabilities, etc. However, in-house analysis can also be complex, time-consuming, or resource-intensive. Therefore, it requires careful planning and execution before using it.
Check Out: How to Become a Cyber Threat Investigator
What are the tools and techniques for a cyber threat intelligence team?
CTI can be supported by various tools and techniques, such as:
- Threat intelligence platforms (TIPs) are software solutions that aggregate, enrich, analyze, and disseminate threat intelligence data. Tips can help you centralize your threat intelligence sources, correlate your threat intelligence data, identify patterns and trends, and share your findings.
- Security information and event management (SIEM) systems are software solutions that collect, correlate, and analyze security events from various sources. SIEMs can help you detect anomalies and incidents, investigate root causes, and respond to alerts.
- Extended detection and response (XDR) systems are software solutions that provide unified visibility and response across multiple security domains. XDRs can help you monitor and protect your endpoints, networks, clouds, and applications.
- Security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) systems are software solutions that automate and streamline security workflows and actions. SOARs can help you reduce manual tasks, improve efficiency, and accelerate response times.
- Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) enable threat intelligence solutions to learn from data and improve their capabilities. AI and ML can help you enhance your threat intelligence analysis, prediction, and generation.
How to start a Cyber Threat Intelligence Team?
Starting a cyber threat intelligence team requires careful planning and execution. Some of the steps involved are:
- Define the goals and scope of the CTI team. You need to determine what you want to achieve with your CTI team, the specific objectives and outcomes, the scope and boundaries, and the success criteria and metrics.
- Identify the stakeholders and customers of the cyber threat intelligence team. You need to identify the internal and external users of your CTI products and services, their needs and expectations, their roles and responsibilities, and how you will communicate and collaborate with them.
- Assess the current state of threat intelligence capabilities and maturity. You need to evaluate your current threat intelligence sources, tools, processes, skills, and gaps, as well as your current threat intelligence challenges, opportunities, strengths, and weaknesses.
- Determine the roles and skills needed for the cyber threat intelligence team. You need to define the roles and responsibilities of your CTI team members, such as analysts, researchers, engineers, managers, etc., as well as the skills and competencies they need, such as technical, analytical, communication, etc.
- Select the tools and processes for the CTI team. You need to choose the tools and techniques that will support your CTI activities, such as TIPs, SIEMs, XDRs, SOARs, AI/ML, etc., as well as the processes and frameworks that will guide your cyber threat intelligence team workflows, such as intelligence cycle, kill chain, diamond model, etc.
- Establish the metrics and feedback mechanisms for the CTI team. You need to measure and monitor your CTI performance, quality, impact, and value, as well as collect and incorporate feedback from your stakeholders and customers to improve your CTI products and services.
Check Out: A Comprehensive Ecosystem of Open-Source Software for Big Data Management
Conclusion
A cyber threat intelligence team is a vital component of any cybersecurity strategy. It can help you better understand the threat landscape, anticipate and prevent cyberattacks, and optimize your security operations.
However, CTI is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It requires a dedicated team of experts, a tailored approach, and a continuous improvement mindset.
