What is Threat Intelligence?

Organizations face a growing volume of cyberattacks as cybercriminals leverage AI and automation to more rapidly perform sophisticated cyberattacks. A reactive approach to security – attempting to identify and mitigate in-progress attacks – is unscalable and provides the attacker with the opportunity to cause significant damage before an incident is remediated.

Threat intelligence is information about emerging and ongoing attack campaigns that organizations can use to predict, identify, and respond to attacks targeting them. This article explores what threat intelligence is, its core components, and how organizations can leverage it effectively.

Understanding Threat Intelligence

Threat intelligence is information that an organization can use to identify or defend against an attack campaign. For example, security researchers commonly disseminate file hashes for known malware and the IP addresses and domain names used in attack campaigns. Organizations can use this data to detect malware in their systems and block connections to known malicious domains.

Core Components of Threat Intelligence

Threat intelligence is created through three main stages:

• Data Collection: Threat intelligence begins by collecting data that could contain information about cyber threats. Security researchers commonly gather open-source intelligence (OSINT), dark web data, and malicious files or content. Internal threat intelligence can come from systems logs, network traffic, and other information about an organization’s network.
• Analysis: Analysis converts raw data into useful threat intelligence. For example, a security company could analyze a malware sample to understand what it does and the IP addresses and domains that it contacts. An organization might identify anomalous activity in its logs that indicates a malware infection.
• Dissemination: Finished threat intelligence can be disseminated internally or externally. Security companies may create free or commercial threat intelligence feeds to inform other organizations of potential threats. An organization may use these feeds or internal threat intelligence to enhance the effectiveness of its security solutions.

Types of Threat Intelligence

Threat intelligence can come in various forms and is intended for different audiences. Some common types include:

• Strategic: Strategic threat intelligence provides high-level information about cyber threats and is intended for executives. For example, the fact that phishing attacks are common might be important for strategic planning and budget allocation.
• Tactical: Tactical threat intelligence describes the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by various threat actors. For example, a SOC may use knowledge of a threat actor’s techniques to identify an attack by them or design more effective defenses.
• Technical: Technical threat intelligence usually includes indicators of compromise (IOCs) such as malware file hashes or known malicious domains. These are often used by security tools, such as advanced threat protection (ATP) or extended detection and response (XDR) solutions, to identify an attack.

Why Threat Intelligence Matters in Cybersecurity

Threat intelligence is a valuable tool for cybersecurity because it helps security teams identify real threats. The knowledge that a file is malware or that a domain is malicious enables faster decision-making and incident response.

Improving Incident Response

Threat intelligence enhances incident response by reducing response times and false positives. For example, if a file matches the hash of a known piece of malware, then a SOC analyst can be certain that it is, in fact, malware. In addition to expediting threat identification, this file hash is also useful for looking up more information on the threat, including recommended actions for remediation.

Proactive Defense

Threat intelligence enables security teams to be more proactive about cyber defense by using information about threat actors to enhance their defenses. For example, the knowledge that a particular threat actor commonly exploits a particular vulnerability for initial access to a target environment encourages security teams to actively seek out and patch any instances of that vulnerability in their systems before an attacker can exploit it.

Threat Intelligence Use Cases and Challenges

Threat intelligence can be used at all levels of an organization’s security program. Technical IOCs are ingested by security tools to identify and block attacks, while tactical and strategic threat intelligence are used to plan defenses. This information can be invaluable for a corporate security program, but organizations can struggle to create and use it effectively.

Key Use Cases

Threat intelligence can translate directly into improved security against various threats. Some common applications include:

Common Challenges

Threat intelligence can be a useful tool, but more data isn’t always better. If an organization ingests all available threat intelligence without curation, it could hinder performance and experience false positive detections due to low-quality threat intelligence.

Companies can also struggle with creating their own internal threat intelligence. With large amounts of security data and limited resources, an organization might not be able to effectively extract useful information from its internal data.

How Cato Networks Supports Threat Intelligence

Cato’s platform is designed to maximize the utility of the threat intelligence at its disposal. The following table highlights how Cato applies threat intelligence in real-time at enterprise scale.

Integrated Security Architecture

The Cato SASE Cloud Platform converges multiple security functions into a single-pass engine that analyzes traffic in real time. Threat intelligence is applied at the point of inspection, offering additional context to support key security activities, such as threat hunting and threat detection.

Threat Intelligence Feeds and Automation

Cato uses a curated threat intelligence feed drawing from multiple sources to offer comprehensive visibility into current attack campaigns. SASE PoPs receive updated threat intelligence in real time, enabling new threats to be automatically detected and blocked at the network edge.

FAQs about Threat Intelligence

What is the purpose of threat intelligence?

Threat intelligence provides information about known attack campaigns, malicious content, and hacking group techniques. It enables security teams to more accurately detect threats and proactively design defenses.

How is threat intelligence collected?

Threat intelligence is collected from various sources, both internal and external. Commercial and open-source feeds are generated by collecting OSINT, dark web data, and information from analyzing malicious content. An organization can generate its own threat intelligence by analyzing log and event data from its systems.

Who uses threat intelligence?

Threat intelligence is used at various levels from security tools up to the C-suite. Security tools use indicators of compromise (IOCs) to identify known malware or phishing, while SOCs and execs use tactical and strategic intelligence to design defenses and perform strategic planning..

How does Cato Networks deliver threat intelligence?

Cato Networks generates threat intelligence based on the traffic inspected across its global network. This data is disseminated to its SASE PoPs in real time to identify threats and enhance protection across all traffic, users, apps, and sites.

Enabling Smarter Defense with Threat Intelligence

Threat intelligence is essentially useful insights that are distilled from security data to enhance security programs. Integrating threat intelligence with security tools is vital to enable enterprise security architectures to keep up with modern, evolving threats.

The Cato SASE Cloud Platform uses integrated threat intelligence in its single-pass inspection engine to identify threats in network traffic in real time. With its converged network and security functions, Cato is 

the ideal platform to unify intelligence, inspection, and enforcement at the edge.

Discover how Cato Network’s cloud-native SASE platform integrates threat intelligence to help your organization detect and respond to threats in real time by scheduling a demo.