Cyber threat intelligence
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Cyber threat intelligence (CTI) is a part of cybersecurity that focuses on collecting, analyzing, and sharing information about potential or existing cyber threats. It gives organizations the information needed to predict, prevent, and respond to cyberattacks, enabling them to understand attackers’ behavior, tactics, and the vulnerabilities they exploit.
Sources of cyber threat intelligence include open-source data, social media, operational and technical intelligence, device log files, forensic analysis, internet traffic, as well as data from the dark web and deep web.
Modern CTI programs stand out from just using raw security data because they combine technical monitoring, outside intelligence sources, and analysis methods to prepare specific and useful assessments about cyber threats aimed at particular organizations or business sectors.
Analytical interpretation gives context to attackers’ actions, capabilities, and intentions, helping organizations set priorities and allocate security resources effectively. When companies base decisions on intelligence and analysis, they can act proactively instead of just reacting to security incidents, stopping breaches before they happen. This approach has become increasingly important in recent years, as IBM estimates that exploiting vulnerabilities is the most common way companies are breached, making up 47% of all attacks.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the rise in remote work have also contributed to increased vulnerability to threats, making corporate data more exposed. Due to growing threats on the one hand, and increasing analytical demands on the other, many companies have decided in recent years to outsource their threat analytics tasks to a managed security service provider (MSSP).
Cyber threat analytics has also become an important component of modern Security Operations Centers (SOCs), where threat intelligence data is used to enrich alerts, identify malicious infrastructure, and support incident response and threat hunting activities.