Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI)

What is Cyber Threat Intelligence?

Cyber threat intelligence (CTI) refers to the collection, analysis, and dissemination actionable information about potential or existing cyber threats that target an organization's digital assets. It enables organizations to proactively defend against cyberattacks and minimize their impact. CTI provides insights into the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of threat actors, allowing organizations to make proactive, informed decisions about their security posture and resource allocation.

CTI is not limited to technical indicators, such as IP addresses or malware signatures; it also encompasses contextual information, such as the motivations, targets, and capabilities of threat actors. By understanding the threat landscape and the specific threats targeting their organization, organizations can prioritize their security efforts and focus on the most critical risks.

Types of Cyber Threat Intelligence

There are generally four types of cyber threat intelligence, each serving different needs:

1. Strategic Intelligence: High-level information intended for decision-makers, often involving assessments of risk, threat actor motivations, and the potential impact on business operations.

2. Tactical Intelligence: Technical details that are useful for security teams, such as indicators of compromise (IP addresses, domains, etc.), TTPs, and vulnerability analysis.

3. Operational Intelligence: Insights about specific, impending attacks that inform incident response activities. This includes data on when, where, and how an attack may occur.

4. Technical Intelligence: Detailed technical data about specific cyber threats, such as malware samples, command-and-control (C2) infrastructure, and the methods employed by attackers.

Three Main Elements of Cyber Threat Intelligence

The three main elements of CTI include:

1. Data Collection: This involves gathering threat data from diverse sources, including open-source information, proprietary feeds, threat sharing communities, and even data from internal logs.

2. Analysis: Once the data is collected, it needs to be processed, contextualized, and evaluated to determine its relevance, accuracy, and potential impact. This analysis transforms raw data into useful intelligence.

3. Dissemination: The intelligence must be communicated in a form that can be easily understood and acted upon by the intended audience. This can range from detailed technical reports for SOC teams to executive summaries for decision-makers.

How is Cyber Threat Intelligence Used?

Cyber threat intelligence is used by a wide range of stakeholders in an organization, from security analysts to executives. CTI is utilized to enhance detection and response capabilities, prioritize vulnerabilities, and proactively manage security risks. It empowers security operations centers (SOCs) with actionable insights to quickly identify threats, aids incident responders by providing context to ongoing incidents, and helps risk management teams understand emerging threats that could impact the organization.

Threat Intelligence vs. Threat Hunting?

Threat intelligence and threat hunting are closely related. Threat hunting is a proactive approach to identifying previously unknown threats as well as cyberattacks in progress that have not yet been remediated. Threat hunters rely on intelligence to provide insight into patterns of suspicious activity that may indicate the presence of a threat. Threat intelligence can also help threat hunters to understand the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) of specific attackers as they search for indications of compromise or malicious activity.

Importance of Cyber Threat Intelligence

CTI is important because it bridges the gap between raw data and actionable knowledge. It enables organizations to stay ahead of adversaries by understanding emerging attack trends and identifying vulnerabilities before they are exploited. By anticipating and mitigating threats, CTI helps minimize the impact of cyber incidents and provides a strategic edge in managing the cybersecurity landscape. In today's dynamic threat environment, having access to reliable threat intelligence can be the difference between a successful defense and a costly breach.

CTI plays a pivotal role in safeguarding organizations for several reasons:

• Understanding the Threat Landscape: CTI provides a comprehensive understanding of the threat landscape, including the latest threats, tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) employed by malicious actors. It equips organizations with the insights they need to prioritize risks and allocate resources effectively.
• Early Detection and Prevention: Timely access to CTI enables organizations to detect and respond to emerging threats before they escalate. By analyzing threat intelligence feeds and monitoring Indicators of Compromise (IOCs), organizations can identify potential attacks and take proactive measures to prevent them from causing significant damage.
• Informed Decision-Making: CTI supports informed decision-making by providing actionable intelligence and insights on threats that could impact an organization's specific industry, infrastructure, or region. This intelligence empowers leaders to make timely decisions and implement appropriate security measures.
• Strategic Planning: CTI contributes to strategic planning by providing organizations with a long-term perspective on the evolving threat landscape. By understanding the emerging threats and trends, organizations can develop proactive strategies to enhance their cybersecurity posture and mitigate potential risks.

Example of Cyber Threat Intelligence in Action

An example of CTI in action could be the detection of an emerging ransomware campaign targeting a particular industry. A threat intelligence provider may alert healthcare organizations about ransomware groups specifically targeting medical data, including details of TTPs, compromised infrastructure, and relevant IOCs. With this information, the organizations can proactively update their defenses, modify access controls, and conduct awareness training to reduce the risk of successful attacks.

The Challenge of Operationalizing CTI

Most organizations understand the importance of cyber threat intelligence, but few are able to operationalize intelligence in a way that minimizes effort while maximizing outcomes. This is often the result of several factors:

• Manual processes. Many security teams gather cyber threat intelligence from open-source websites, serial data feeds and generic reports. Analysts are assigned to review the data, identify relevant threats, input information into SIEM systems and translate indicators of compromise (IOCs) into blocking rule sets. These manual processes simply can’t keep pace with the quickly evolving threat landscape, resulting in an ever-longer time-lag between threat discovery and preventative action.

• Limited view. For some security teams, threat intelligence is limited to IOCs like malware hashes, rogue IP addresses and known phishing sites. While these are important, they provide only a partial understanding of the universe of threats their organizations face.

• Resource gaps. Organizations may lack the processes, staff and skills to consume and manage cyber threat intelligence. This situation is compounded by a global skills shortage in cybersecurity analysts.

• Siloed efforts. When critical cybersecurity tasks like vulnerability management, incident response and security operations are dispersed across disparate teams, inefficiencies and higher costs are inescapable. This siloed approach often results in failure to share intelligence data across the organization.

What is the Deep Web vs. Dark Web?

The term deep web refers broadly to any internet content that is not indexed by search engines, requiring authentication to access. Most of the deep web is benign – yet personal – information, such as personal email threads, direct messages between friends on social messaging platforms, paid video subscription services, financial accounts, digital university libraries, and other protected sites that require a username and password for access. While deep web content requires authentication, it can be accessed through regular internet browsers like Safari, Firefox or Chrome.

The dark web, on the other hand, cannot be accessed by a regular web browser, and can only be accessed through a specific web browser (most commonly TOR & Freenet), which scrambles location and hides identity, using encryption to keep users anonymous. This emphasis on privacy and anonymity makes the dark web the perfect platform for anyone who seeks covert and unrestricted access to uncensored and unregulated information, such as whistle-blowers, journalists, political dissidents, and more. It also makes the dark web home to a thriving cybercriminal community, where malicious threat actors discuss tactics, share their wares and access all the tools and resources they may need to launch attacks against their chosen targets.

Threat Intelligence & the Deep and Dark Web

For cybercriminals, the deep and dark web are key channels for communicating and collaborating with other threat actors as well as buying and selling services and resources, such as tools for cyberattacks and compromised information stolen from past attacks. Most importantly for these criminals, the dark web is a place to do all of these things anonymously.

Understanding the dark web is a critical component of a threat intelligence program. Analysts can use it to examine discussions of tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs), monitor transactions of tools needed in cyberattacks, and investigate the success of earlier attacks by searching for compromised credit cards or credentials that may be listed for sale.

Protect from Threats with Cyber Threat Intelligence

Cybersixgill, a Bitsight company, delivers real-time threat intelligence from the dark web to help organizations stay ahead of cyber threats. With access to over 1,000 underground forums and marketplaces, it collects and analyzes more than 7 million intelligence items daily. Tracking 700+ APT groups, 4,000+ malware types, and 95 million threat actors, it provides security teams with rapid, context-rich insights. By enriching data with context, Cybersixgill enables proactive threat detection and mitigation within minutes of collection.

Bitsight’s cyber threat intelligence solution helps protect your supply chain from threats through:

• Generative AI: Aimed at simplifying complex threat data, and drawing from comprehensive collection of real-time threat intelligence, Cybersixgill IQ delivers AI-generated analysis, high-quality finished reporting and 24/7 assistance.
• Vulnerability intelligence: Dynamic Vulnerability Exploit (DVE) Intelligence is an end-to-end solution that spans the entire CVE lifecycle, streamlining vulnerability analysis, prioritization, management and remediation.
• Identity intelligence: Discover and manage compromised identity credentials–typically originating from Malware stealer logs–and set prioritization preferences to better safeguard priority assets and proactively remediate threats as they surface. 
• Attack surface intelligence: Continuously identify, classify, and monitor unknown networked assets to mitigate organizational risk. Leverage real-time asset discovery and context-rich threat intelligence across the deep, dark, and clear web for early threat detection.
• Ransomware & malware intelligence: Gain comprehensive, real-time ransomware threat intelligence from OSINT and the clear, deep, and dark web, including insights into ransomware groups’ activities, TTPs, vulnerabilities, targeted sectors, and remediation strategies.
• Brand & phishing intelligence: Detect real-time mentions of your brand across the cybercriminal underground. Receive early alerts regarding threat actor activity and discussions related to your company assets, products, management and credentials. 
• Threat Intelligence Services (DRPS): Elite Intelligence Services are tailored to meet the needs of your organization, delivering the insight you need to take action and reduce your threat exposure.