How to Choose the Right Cyber Threat Intelligence Tool

Choosing a cyber threat intelligence tool

Today’s cybersecurity pros know how important it is to have good threat intelligence. Such information affects so many aspects of an organization’s cybersecurity program, including threat hunting, data forensics and incident response, fraud, vulnerability management, governance, risk and compliance, and third-party risk management.

But organizations vary widely in their threat intelligence needs. Some have huge attack surfaces while others are relatively small. Some are in industries likely to be attacked, both due to the potential for large financial gain and the ability for threat actors to cause chaos and disruption. Others are less attractive to cybercriminals. Enterprises tend to have large, well-trained security teams, while almost all companies, regardless of size, make do with fewer security pros than they’d like. 

All but the very smallest organizations will want to gather threat intelligence using a specialized threat intelligence tool rather than manually. With so many options available, how should a cybersecurity team decide which threat intelligence company to select? 

If you’re considering a new threat intelligence product, here are the steps to take that should help you make the right choice for your organization.

What are your organization’s intelligence requirements?

To be useful, cyber threat intelligence (CTI) must address a set of security concerns specific to an organization, delivered in a format and timeframe that helps decision-makers take informed actions. Excessive, irrelevant, or overly technical intelligence is not only not useful, it clogs the system and obscures important information. 

Yet security teams frequently face “data overload” caused by receiving volumes of information that hasn’t been filtered for applicability to their organization. Accordingly, teams need to have threat intelligence put into the context of their industry, attack surface, and overall risk. With contextual CTI, teams get insights into threats that are relevant to their organizations, saving them time and energy on research and investigations and enabling them to prioritize detection and response efforts. 

For example, understanding the activities and motivations of a threat actor group can give your security team pertinent information. You’d benefit by knowing if the group has targeted victims similar to your organization and the results of those attacks. You’d also learn the nature of the threat, the risks posed, and what mitigation strategies your organization might adopt.

Ultimately, contextual threat intelligence assembles relevant data pieces (the who, what, when, where, and why of threats) and uses attack surface management data and automation to see how threats pertain to your organization’s vulnerabilities and business context. Without context, your investigations and remediation can be significantly hindered, leaving organizations vulnerable to an attack.  With context, your team can take effective and appropriate remediation measures in a timely fashion.

How prepared is your organization to receive threat intelligence?

CTI is only as effective as the organization is in receiving it. To build an effective CTI program, an organization must collectively identify its technical, operational, and business requirements to the security team so the team knows what matters most. At the same time, those outside the security team must be receptive to consuming intelligence provided by the team to guide their processes and decisions. In short, your CTI team must have the attention, resources, and organizational connections essential to success. Otherwise, your team’s reports, no matter how good they are, will just collect dust on the shelf.

To avoid potential conflicts with the rest of the organization, be careful when formulating how your CTI analysts pass on what they’ve learned to various departments and leaders. The information shared has to be appropriate for the audience receiving it. 

For example, when reporting to the C-suite, it’s best to avoid using acronyms and technical jargon. That data may be more relevant for the security operations center or the incident response team, but not for business leaders. For them, put the information in terms relevant for the business strategy and risk management issues pertinent to their roles.

Keep four questions in mind every time you create a CTI deliverable:

1. Who is the audience? 
2. What is the main takeaway?
3. Why is this information relevant to this audience?
4. What organizational responses should be considered?

How do you evaluate vendors when considering a CTI company?

You’ll want a comprehensive set of evaluation criteria to evaluate the effectiveness and value of a CTI vendor’s (or an MSSP’s) offering. Some of the questions you might pose are:

• What capabilities do you offer?
• What use cases do you address?
• What data sources do you use and how many? 
• Do you provide data transparency?  
• How would you curate threat intelligence so it’s relevant to my organization?  
• What delivery methods or integrations do you offer? 
• Does your solution include generative AI capabilities (that is, AI specifically created for cybersecurity applications)?

Remember, more is not better. More is more. While it is always advisable to vary sources of intelligence, too much data can overwhelm your analysts and cause them to miss key data. CTI managers must choose products and sources based on quality, and teams must implement procedures that prioritize the most important data.

When threat intelligence includes business context, automated capabilities, and seamless integration, it’s easier for teams to understand what actions to take to proactively detect and mitigate threats and vulnerabilities. This level of actionability can mean the difference between an organization being attacked and stopping an attack before it occurs.

6 criteria for assessing threat intelligence vendors

There are several essential criteria to consider when comparing cyber threat intelligence companies:

Breadth of sources

From threat hunting and phishing detection to online brand protection, the more sources that a threat intelligence provider monitors, the better the intelligence will be. Sources should include websites on the clear and deep web as well as dark web sources such as limited-access forums, underground marketplaces, code repositories, invite-only messaging apps and paste sites.

Targeted alerts

Many threat intelligence vendors offer solutions that flood their customers with an overwhelming volume of disparate and largely irrelevant threat data. This inevitably leads to alert fatigue and can compromise a security team’s ability to identify and respond to real threats. A superior solution will target threat intelligence to the unique needs, assets, workflows, use case and attack surface of each customer.

Quality of intelligence

Simply delivering threat intelligence isn’t sufficient to help security teams understand the nature of a threat and to prioritize mitigation. The best threat intelligence companies enrich every bit of intelligence with context about the nature, source and urgency of the threat as well as steps required for remediation.

Speed of extraction

To keep pace with the speed of innovation in cybercrime, organizations need a threat intelligence provider that can extract, analyze and deliver data with exceptional speed. The sooner security teams can get their hands on actionable threat intelligence, the sooner they can protect their organization from emerging threats.

Automated solutions

Modern threat intelligence programs must be automated from end to end to eliminate time-consuming manual steps and the potential for human error. Superior threat intelligence companies offer automated solutions that allow teams to spend less time manipulating data and more time blocking emerging threats.

Integrated data, feeds and portals

To maximize the value of threat intelligence, it must be integrated with existing solutions in the security stack through threat intelligence feeds and made available throughout the organization.

Protect from threats with cyber threat intelligence

Bitsight 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, Bitsight 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, Bitsight 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.