Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI)
Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) is more than just data; it's about context and action. In cybersecurity, CTI involves gathering, analyzing, and disseminating information about existing or emerging threats. This information helps organizations anticipate, prevent, and respond more effectively to cyberattacks.
Here's a breakdown of what that means in detail:
Gathering Information: CTI sources information from various places, including:
Open-source intelligence (OSINT): Freely available data on the internet (e.g., threat reports, blogs, social media).
Commercial threat intelligence feeds: Subscriptions to services that provide curated and analyzed threat data.
Technical sources: Logs, network traffic analysis, malware samples, and intrusion detection system (IDS) alerts.
Human intelligence: Information from security researchers, industry experts, and information-sharing communities.
Analyzing Information: Raw data is processed and analyzed to provide context. This involves:
Identifying threat actors: Determining who is behind the attacks (e.g., nation-state groups, cybercriminals).
Understanding their motivations: Why are they attacking (e.g., financial gain, espionage, disruption)?
Analyzing their capabilities: What tools, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) do they use?
Predicting future behavior: Anticipating what they might do next based on past activity.
Disseminating Information: The analyzed intelligence is shared with relevant stakeholders:
Security teams: To improve defenses and incident response.
Executives: To inform business decisions and risk management.
Other organizations: To foster collaboration and collective defense.
CTI transforms raw threat data into actionable insights, enabling organizations to make informed decisions and proactively protect themselves in the ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape.
Here’s how ThreatNG addresses Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) using its various capabilities:
How ThreatNG Helps with Cyber Threat Intelligence
ThreatNG is designed to provide comprehensive external threat intelligence, automating much of the core collection and analysis work for CTI. By focusing on the surface of the external attack, organizations gain a unique perspective on threats.
ThreatNG Capabilities and CTI
External Discovery: ThreatNG performs external unauthenticated discovery, meaning it can find assets and potential vulnerabilities without needing any internal access or credentials.
This is crucial for CTI because it reveals the attacker's view of an organization. For example, ThreatNG can discover subdomains an organization might have forgotten about, exposed servers, or open cloud storage buckets. This information helps in understanding potential entry points for attacks.
External Assessment: ThreatNG provides various assessment ratings that act as threat intelligence by highlighting specific risks.
Web Application Hijack Susceptibility: ThreatNG analyzes web applications to find potential hijack points, providing intelligence on how attackers might compromise them.
Example: It can identify outdated software components or insecure configurations in a login page, indicating a higher risk of hijacking.
Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility: It assesses the risk of attackers taking over subdomains.
Example: ThreatNG can detect subdomains with dangling DNS records, which attackers could claim and use for phishing.
BEC & Phishing Susceptibility: ThreatNG uses domain intelligence, email intelligence, and dark web presence to assess the risk of Business Email Compromise (BEC) and phishing attacks.
Example: It analyzes email security protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) to see if they are correctly configured, providing intelligence on how easily attackers could spoof emails.
Brand Damage Susceptibility: This feature provides intelligence on factors that could damage an organization's brand, such as ESG violations, negative news, and the registration of confusingly similar domain names.
Example: ThreatNG can find social media posts that indicate customer dissatisfaction or the availability of domain names that could be used for typosquatting.
Data Leak Susceptibility: ThreatNG identifies potential data leaks by analyzing cloud and SaaS exposure, dark web presence (compromised credentials), and other factors.
Example: It can discover exposed cloud storage buckets or code repositories containing sensitive information.
Cyber Risk Exposure: ThreatNG assesses an organization's overall cyber risk by examining certificates, subdomains, vulnerabilities, and exposed ports. It also includes code secret exposure, cloud and SaaS exposure, and compromised credentials.
Example: It can identify exposed database ports or use outdated TLS certificates, which increases the risk of an attack.
ESG Exposure: ThreatNG provides threat intelligence related to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) violations.
Example: It can find information about regulatory fines or negative news related to environmental incidents.
Supply Chain & Third-Party Exposure: This feature assesses risks associated with an organization's supply chain and third parties.
Example: It can identify vulnerabilities in vendor technologies or data exposure in third-party cloud services.
Breach & Ransomware Susceptibility: ThreatNG assesses the likelihood of breaches and ransomware attacks.
Example: It can find compromised credentials on the dark web or track ransomware gang activity targeting similar organizations.
Mobile App Exposure: ThreatNG analyzes the security of an organization's mobile apps by discovering them in marketplaces and identifying potential vulnerabilities.
Example: It can discover hard-coded API keys or credentials within mobile app code.
Positive Security Indicators: ThreatNG also identifies and highlights an organization's security strengths, providing a balanced view of its security posture.
Example: It can validate the presence of a web application firewall (WAF) or multi-factor authentication (MFA).
Reporting: ThreatNG provides various reports, including executive, technical, prioritized, and security ratings reports. These reports translate the threat intelligence into actionable formats for different audiences.
Example: An executive report might summarize the overall cyber risk exposure, while a technical report provides detailed findings on vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.
Continuous Monitoring: ThreatNG monitors the external attack surface, digital risk, and security ratings. This ongoing monitoring provides up-to-date threat intelligence critical in the dynamic threat landscape.
Example: If a new vulnerability is discovered in a web server, ThreatNG will detect it and alert the organization.
Investigation Modules: ThreatNG includes modules like Domain Intelligence, IP Intelligence, Certificate Intelligence, Social Media, Sensitive Code Exposure, Mobile Application Discovery, Search Engine Exploitation, Cloud and SaaS Exposure, Online Sharing Exposure, Sentiment and Financials, Archived Web Pages, Dark Web Presence, and Technology Stack. These modules provide in-depth information for threat analysis and investigation.
Domain Intelligence: Provides details about domains, DNS records, subdomains, and related information.
Example: Analyzing DNS records can reveal the hosting provider and other infrastructure details, which can help identify potential targets.
Sensitive Code Exposure: Discovers exposed code repositories and identifies sensitive information, such as API keys and credentials.
Example: Finding an exposed AWS secret access key would be a critical threat intelligence finding.
Mobile Application Discovery: Discovers mobile apps and analyzes their contents for sensitive information.
Example: Discovering hardcoded credentials in a mobile app can indicate a significant vulnerability.
Search Engine Exploitation: Helps identify information exposed via search engines.
Example: Finding sensitive files indexed by Google can prevent data leaks.
Dark Web Presence: Monitors the dark web for mentions of the organization, compromised credentials, and ransomware activity.
Example: Discovering compromised credentials on the dark web can alert organizations to potential account takeover attacks.
Intelligence Repositories: ThreatNG maintains repositories of information on the dark web, compromised credentials, ransomware events, vulnerabilities, and more. These repositories enhance threat intelligence capabilities by providing context and historical data.
Example: Tracking ransomware gang activity helps anticipate potential attacks.
Work with Complementary Solutions: ThreatNG is designed to work alongside other security tools.
Examples of how ThreatNG helps:
It can provide valuable context to SIEM systems by highlighting external threats.
It can inform vulnerability management programs by prioritizing vulnerabilities based on external exposure.
It can enhance incident response by providing intelligence on attacker tactics and techniques.
Examples of ThreatNG working with complementary solutions:
Integrating with a SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) system to correlate external threat data with internal security events.
Feeding vulnerability data into a patch management system to prioritize patching externally exposed systems.
Sharing threat intelligence with a TIP (Threat Intelligence Platform) enriches overall threat visibility.
ThreatNG provides a robust platform for external cyber threat intelligence, enabling organizations to manage their attack surface and mitigate potential threats proactively.
