As cyber threats have widened, so have its aspect of harming an organization (ranging from technically to viably); it is now difficult to foresee what threats are coming your way. An article by Forbes states that on an average, over 40% of breaches remain undetected for more than a week. While there are about 9% of data breach attempts that go unnoticed for more than a month. [1] A few of the past year’s popular data breach incidents include major companies like FedEx, My Heritage, MyFitnessPal, Adidas, the US Air Force, Instagram, and many more. [2] These companies, although investing generously in their cybersecurity solutions, still remain susceptible to notorious cyberattacks. These incidents are a cautionary alert to help us realize that traditional cybersecurity approach must be replaced with new and innovative solutions, one such new-age solutions being cyber threat intelligence. Instead of being breached, take a proactive road to predictive analysis.
What is Considered a Threat? And What is Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI)?
In the context of computer security, a threat is a possible danger that can exploit an existing vulnerability through a security breach with an intent to cause serious harm to the computer system. It can either be accidentally generated or intentionally induced. These threats are not limited to a targeted computer system, but can also attack an organization’s network.
Why We Need Cyber Threat Intelligence?
Cyber threat intelligence ensures that any kind of security breach can be prevented, disrupted, or if already occurred, responded to accordingly as a pre-defined defensive strategy. The primary objective of CTI always remains to block a threat before it can breach the system or network. It also disrupts the ultimate intent of the threat. This makes your security strategy fool-proof by including initial system intrusion to final exfiltration of data. The threat intelligence covers all the details of a threat such as tools used to break in the network infrastructure, how it went unnoticed by the intrusion detection system, what is stolen from the system, are there any malware planted in the system, and what is the communication channel between the perpetrator and their induced attack. Finding answers to these questions will help you build an effective defensive strategy. Cyber intelligence analysts can also help security analysts/engineers, incident response team, and computer forensic analysts do their job more efficiently.
Roles and Responsibilities of Threat Intel
If an organization is investing in a threat intelligence program, then they are looking for experts who can fortify the security system of the organization and do everything to protect their system and network before a cyberattack can harm the system or network. Apart from that, cyber intelligence analysts are subjected to perform a few other tasks which are listed below –
- Malicious Communications
A proper threat intelligence program is capable of monitoring any kind of communications with malicious IPs or domains. It can also collect intelligence data about these communications.
- Detection of Security Breaches
To limit the impact of a security breach in an organization, it is required to detect it as early as possible. For instance, deep inspection of a network packet not only monitors network flow, but it can also detect hidden viruses, intrusions, and non-compliant protocols.
- Incident Response
A threat intel can help the incident response team with important information like the scope, method of operation, and data compromised. This will save invaluable time of the incident responders.
- Data Analysis
Data collected regarding the threat helps determine additional information like the intent of the perpetrator and the assets they want to get hold of.
- Threat Intelligence Sharing
With a centralized database or just by sharing threat information with other organizations can bring awareness against the existence of numerous threats in the industry.
Starting a Career in Threat Intel Is a Few Steps Away
Grand View Research, Inc., published a report mentioning that the global market for threat intelligence will reach $12.6 billion by 2025. [3] The number shows the growing demand for threat intelligence experts. Anyone with appropriate knowledge and right credentials are welcomed. In order to get the required knowledge and credential, take a look at our Certified Threat Intelligence Analyst (C|TIA) program. This program is in compliance with the NICE and CREST frameworks which implies that the curriculum of C|TIA covers all the aspects of cyber threat intelligence in a way to help you get through any challenging threat intelligence job role.
