Integrate Threat Intelligence Into Your Security Operations
Action beats reaction.
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Contributors
- Josh Lefkowitz, CEO, Flashpoint
- Tom Knickerbocker, Global Head Cyber Intelligence, Financial Services
- Chris Camacho, Cofounder & Chief Executive Officer, NinjaJobs
- Anthony Vitello, Senior Vice President Global Information Security, Citigroup
- John LaCour, CEO PhishLabs, Cyber Security
- Jeff Combs, Recruitment Leader, Cyber Security
- Andrew Richardson, Associate Director, EY
- 8 Senior Executives in the financial services, computer network and security, and telecommunications industry
Your Challenge
- Organizations have limited visibility into their threat landscape, and as such are vulnerable to the latest attacks, hindering business practices, workflow, revenue generation, and damaging their public image.
- Organizations are developing ad hoc intelligence capabilities that result in operational inefficiencies, the misalignment of resources, and the misuse of their security technology investments.
- It is difficult to communicate the value of a threat intelligence solution when trying to secure organizational buy-in and the appropriate resourcing.
- There is a vast array of “intelligence” in varying formats, often resulting in information overload.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Information alone is not actionable. A successful threat intelligence program contextualizes threat data, aligns intelligence with business objectives, and then builds processes to satisfy those objectives.
- Your security controls are diminishing in value (if they haven’t already). As technology in the industry evolves, threat actors will inevitably adopt new tools, tactics, and procedures; a threat intelligence program can provide relevant situational awareness to stay on top of the rapidly-evolving threat landscape.
- Your organization might not be the final target, but it could be a primary path for attackers. If you exist as a third-party partner to another organization, your responsibility in your technology ecosystem extends beyond your own product/service offerings. Threat intelligence provides visibility into the latest threats, which can help you avoid becoming a backdoor in the next big data breach.
Impact and Result
- Assess the needs and intelligence requirements of key stakeholders.
- Garner organizational buy-in from senior management.
- Identify organizational intelligence gaps and structure your efforts accordingly.
- Understand the different collection solutions to identify which best supports your needs.
- Optimize the analysis process by leveraging automation and industry best practices.
- Establish a comprehensive threat knowledge portal.
- Define critical threat escalation protocol.
- Produce and share actionable intelligence with your constituency.
- Create a deployment strategy to roll out the threat intelligence program.
- Integrate threat intelligence within your security operations.
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should implement a threat intelligence program, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.
1. Plan for a threat intelligence program
Assess current capabilities and define an ideal target state.
2. Design an intelligence collection strategy
Understand the different collection solutions to identify which best supports needs.
3. Optimize the intelligence analysis process
Begin analyzing and acting on gathered intelligence.
4. Design a collaboration and feedback program
Stand up an intelligence dissemination program.
Guided Implementations
This guided implementation is an eight call advisory process.
Guided Implementation #1 - Plan for a threat intelligence program
Call #1 - Project kick-off call
Call #2 - Plan your ideal target state
Guided Implementation #2 - Design an intelligence collection strategy
Call #1 - Conduct organizational intelligence needs assessment
Call #2 - Map internal/external data sourcing to intelligence needs
Guided Implementation #3 - Optimize the intelligence analysis process
Call #1 - Optimize your analysis process
Call #2 - Develop an intelligence action plan
Guided Implementation #4 - Design a collaboration and feedback program
Call #1 - Design an intelligence collaboration plan
Call #2 - Facilitate delivery of the cyber attack simulation
Book Your Workshop
Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Plan the Threat Intelligence Implementation Process
The Purpose
- Assess current capabilities and define an ideal target state.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Develop a structured implementation roadmap that accounts for changes in people, processes, and technology.
Activities
Outputs
Understand the basics of threat intelligence.
Assess your organization’s current threat landscape.
- Defined Risk Tolerance Level
Map out your organization’s ideal target state.
- Security Maturity Assessment
Establish your case to management for a threat intelligence program.
- A Threat Intelligence Project Charter
- Formalized Stakeholder Support
Satisfy organizational gaps with the appropriate threat intelligence team.
- Assigned Project Responsibilities
Strategically map out your threat intelligence process.
- Threat Intelligence Policies and Management Guide
Module 2: Design an Intelligence Collection Strategy
The Purpose
Design a threat intelligence collection strategy that best supports your organizational needs.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Understand the various collection strategies and methodologies.
- Aggregate reliable, credible, and actionable data.
Activities
Outputs
Design a threat intelligence collection strategy.
- Formalized collection strategy.
Normalize intelligence by adopting industry-recommended standards and languages.
- Clarification on intelligence standards.
Understand the different collection solutions to identify which best supports your needs.
- An evaluation of the various intelligence collection methods.
Ensure your collection methods produce actionable data.
- Method to evaluate the credibility of gathered intelligence.
Module 3: Optimize the Intelligence Analysis Process
The Purpose
- Understand the threat intelligence analysis process and responsibilities.
- Identify how to optimize the analysis and action processes.
- Identify how to integrate intelligence within your security operations.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Leverage multiple schools of thought for your analysis process.
- Automate and optimize the analysis process.
- Clarify the intelligence escalation process with runbooks to eliminate ambiguities and streamline the process.
- Store and share valuable intelligence across the organization.
Activities
Outputs
Understand the threat intelligence analysis process and responsibilities.
- Understanding of threat intelligence analysis processes
Optimize the analysis process to increase operational efficiency.
- A plan to automate analysis process
Act on the gathered intelligence.
- A plan to ingest IOCs and defined escalation protocols
Develop top-priority intelligence runbooks.
- A prioritized list of runbooks
Establish a comprehensive threat knowledge portal.
- An established central knowledge portal
Module 4: Design a Collaboration and Feedback Program
The Purpose
Stand up an intelligence dissemination program.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Create valuable intelligence reports, alerts, and briefings.
- Promote continuous improvement through simulated response exercises.
Activities
Outputs
Understand the value of intelligence dissemination.
- Understanding of the benefits of intelligence dissemination.
Begin producing actionable intelligence alerts, reports, and briefings.
- A collaboration and feedback cycle.
Develop a continuous improvement cycle.
- A plan for continuous improvement.
