KEY TAKEAWAYS:
--Security teams often have to play whack-a-mole, addressing cybersecurity issues as they occur but without getting ahead of malicious actors.
--Integrating new technologies--Digital Risk Protection Services (DRPS) and External Attack Surface Management (EASM), integrated with Attack Surface Management (ASM)--gives companies a comprehensive, automated view so they can identify and manage vulnerabilities and potential entry points for threat actors.
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Given today's expansive digital landscape and widening attack surface, the volume of threat intelligence data has reached unmanageable levels. Security leaders must reduce organizational threat exposure across a rapidly proliferating attack surface but typically lack the means to identify the threats that pose the most significant risk to their organizations. Security teams play whack-a-mole, addressing issues as they occur without getting ahead of malicious actors.
Cyber threat intelligence plays a vital role in cyber warfare and is no longer a "nice-to-have" but a "need-to-have." With the right tools, teams can derive critical insights into the emerging tactics, techniques, vectors and procedures that could expose their network to attack. But selecting the right threat intelligence products and services to maximize business value is not easy. This article provides an overview of the threat intelligence space and offers a guide for how to find the right solution(s). Essential points include:
- The importance of context and accuracy in threat intelligence offerings
- The convergence of CTI, DRPS, and EASM
- The role of data analytics and automation in threat intelligence
- The need to tailor predictions and risk assessment according to business criticality
Gain an accurate picture of the threat landscape through context and accuracy
The value of threat intelligence depends not only on the relevance and timeliness of the information. Perhaps more importantly, threat intelligence must provide critical context about threat actor groups and their tactics, techniques, procedures, vulnerability exploits, indicators of compromise and more.
For example, through the combination of advanced AI, machine learning and processing and analyzing comprehensive data from millions of online and dark web sources, organizations can receive early warnings of potential risk to their network. When threat intelligence blends context about each organization's unique attack surface and assets, security teams can operate more efficiently, knowing that they're taking action to mitigate the most urgent, dangerous threats to their corporate environment.
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Integrate CTI, DRPS and EASM for a comprehensive view
With so much at stake and so many dollars invested in a wide range of cybersecurity solutions, organizations need to prove the value of their security stack. This need drives companies toward consolidating vendors and products to simplify their solution suites. As a result, threat intelligence vendors are beginning to integrate features from adjacent markets, such as Digital Risk Protection Services (DRPS) and External Attack Surface Management (EASM).
With DRPS, companies proactively monitor their digital footprint across the surface web and underground sites, forums and marketplaces, identifying and mitigating risks. Integrating EASM discovery capabilities with Attack Surface Management (ASM) gives companies a comprehensive view of their unknown externally facing assets so they can identify and manage vulnerabilities and potential entry points for threat actors. By combining these solutions with threat intelligence, organizations gain a unified view of their complete asset inventory and overall threat exposure.
Enhance CTI outputs with data analytics and automation
In its Market Guide for Security Threat Intelligence Products and Services, Gartner notes that analytics, data science and automation are becoming critical components of threat intelligence solutions. These capabilities can significantly reduce the time and effort needed to operationalize threat intelligence across large, mixed datasets.
CTI that autonomously infiltrates deep, dark and clear web sources enables frontline defenders to extract, process, correlate and analyze data in real time. These benefits are more significant when adding features like graph analytics, link analysis and rich threat actor modeling.
Additionally, advanced capabilities like entity extraction, visual graph analyzers, peer network analysis and a customizable dashboard interface help organizations understand their threat exposure at a glance. In essence, next-generation CTI solutions that blend robust analytics with automation and other cutting-edge capabilities give customers powerful data to rapidly respond to critical threats and mitigate risks before they can be exploited.
Tailor predictions and risk assessments according to business-criticality
Organizations can optimize their threat intelligence investments by developing a CTI program tailored to their unique business needs, risks and objectives. By refining threat intelligence with the organization's critical internal context, security teams can filter out irrelevant data and focus on the threats and insights that matter most. Additionally, business executives are better equipped to prioritize resources.
These benefits are another reason for integrating an EASM solution with CTI. EASM continuously discovers and classifies known and unknown networked assets that could expose an organization to risk, while combining the two technologies enables companies to tailor threat intelligence to their unique attack surface.
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Conclusion
The rapidly expanding digital landscape and proliferation of potential attack vectors have created an increasingly complex and challenging environment for security teams. The accelerated pace of technological advancements means that manual and hybrid solutions are no longer adequate to protect the expanding attack surface at the scale and sophistication of emerging threats. Threat actors increasingly leverage AI and automation, making it imperative for security vendors and defenders to incorporate these technologies in their cybersecurity strategy.
