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Technologies are at the core of modern business and provide many benefits. However, with them comes the risk of cyber threats and data leakage. The issue of cyber defense is not always a priority of the company’s management. Some owners mistakenly think that this definitely doesn’t concern them. Some of them don’t know how to start the protection process. Threat intelligence will help to understand current threats, their impact on a company, and what solutions are needed in this situation.

What is Threat Intelligence?

Threat Intelligence is specific knowledge about current and potential cyber-attacks. It can be used to make decisions to respond to and prevent such a threat. Threat Intelligence allows to understand the existing threats, their impact and consequences both on an individual organization and on the whole industry, make strategic decisions and manage risks.

Basic goals:

• to increase awareness of threats;
• to select an effective and relevant set of protective measures against existing threats, taking into account organization’s characteristics and scope;
• to increase the level of threats detection and response to them;

Why is Threat Intelligence important?

• Increase in persistent threats;
• Large loss of raw data due to data leaks;
• Lack of knowledge about possible security solutions;
• False responses of cyber security systems;
• Lack of qualified specialists who can cope with the growing number of threats.

In addition, the correct implementation of Threat Intelligence allows to solve the following problems:

1. Cost reduction: avoiding the cost of fines, investigation, restoration of lost business reputation, market position and share, elimination of cyberattacks consequences.
2. Risk mitigation: understanding possible cybersecurity threats before they are put into action; such a search for threats minimizes the risks of data loss.
3. Data Loss Prevention: Prevent cybercriminals from infiltrating, find and identify suspicious domains or IP addresses that are trying to access the organization’s network.
4. Deep cyber analysis: determining the ability of a system to prevent a cyber-attack (malware, phishing, etc.) by revealing various methods, strategies and decision-making processes of cybercriminals.
5. Security Posture Assessment: Determining network security by collecting information about the vulnerabilities of the company’s software and tools. This contributes to the correct vulnerabilities management in real time.

Information about cyber threats benefits all organization’s members, as well as its customers and partners.

Threat Intelligence benefits for specific groups within an organization:

• Management: obtaining up-to-date information on all current and potential risks; existing risks understanding, ways to prevent, security measures improvement and consequences mitigation; strategic planning implementation, taking into account the likelihood of risks and their consequences;
• Threat analysts: threat subjects detection and tracking;
• IT analytics: increasing the ability to detect, prevent and strengthen protection;
• Employees, customers, partners: fraud prevention, reliable information protection.

Types of Threat Intelligence

1. Strategic analysis – helps decision makers understand risks and vulnerabilities. More often presented in the form of briefings and reports. Information sources: news from various sources, documents, research reports.
2. Tactical Analysis – designed for security personnel, system architects and system administrators. Such analysis is more technical than strategic. The goal is to understand from a technical point of view possible attack methods and defense methods. Information is used to improve existing security measures.
3. Operational analysis – information about who is a threat initiator, threats causes, terms of implementation, tactics and methods used.