Extended Threat Intelligence (XTI)

Extended Threat Intelligence (XTI) takes the traditional concept of threat intelligence and broadens its scope. It's a more holistic and proactive approach to cybersecurity that combines several key elements:

Traditional Threat Intelligence: This forms the foundation of XTI. It involves gathering, analyzing, and distributing information about existing and potential cyber threats. It includes data on:

• Threat actors: Their identities, motives, and methods.

• Vulnerabilities: Weaknesses in systems that can be exploited.

• Attack vectors: The methods used to launch attacks.

• Malware: Malicious software like viruses, ransomware, and spyware.

Digital Risk Protection (DRP): XTI goes beyond knowing about threats. It actively works to protect an organization's digital assets by:

• Monitoring the surface, deep, and dark web: This includes social media, forums, and other online platforms for mentions of the organization, its employees, or its brand.

• Detecting and responding to online threats: Identifying and mitigating risks like phishing attacks, brand impersonation, and data leaks.

• Safeguarding intellectual property and brand reputation: Protecting against online fraud, counterfeit products, and negative publicity.

External Attack Surface Management (EASM): XTI also focuses on understanding and managing the organization's attack surface from an external perspective. This involves:

• Identifying and assessing internet-facing assets: Discovering unknown or forgotten assets like websites, servers, and applications.

• Analyzing for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations: Proactively finding weaknesses that attackers could exploit.

• Prioritizing and remediating risks: To reduce the organization's overall exposure to cyberattacks.

Critical Benefits of Extended Threat Intelligence:

• Proactive Security: XTI shifts the focus from reactive to proactive security, allowing organizations to anticipate and mitigate threats before they can cause damage.

• Comprehensive View of the Threat Landscape: XTI provides a complete understanding of the organization's cyber risks by considering various sources and threats.

• Improved Decision-Making: XTI empowers security teams and executives with actionable intelligence to make informed security investments and strategic decisions.

• Reduced Attack Surface: By actively managing and reducing the attack surface, XTI makes it more difficult for attackers to find and exploit vulnerabilities.

Extended Threat Intelligence is a more mature and comprehensive approach to cybersecurity that integrates threat intelligence, digital risk protection, and external attack surface management to provide organizations with a more robust defense against the evolving threat landscape.

ThreatNG, with its comprehensive suite of features, acts as a powerful force multiplier for Extended Threat Intelligence (XTI). Here's how it contributes to the core elements of XTI and works with complementary solutions:

Enhancing Traditional Threat Intelligence:

• Threat Actor Identification and Profiling: ThreatNG's intelligence repositories, particularly its "dark web" monitoring and "compromised credentials" databases, provide valuable information about known threat actors, their tactics, and potential targets. ThreatNG also tracks over 70 Ransomware Gangs. This empowers organizations to defend against specific threats and anticipate future attacks proactively.

• Vulnerability Management: ThreatNG's discovery and assessment capabilities identify vulnerabilities across the external attack surface. This includes web applications, subdomains, exposed APIs, and more granular findings from modules like "Code Repository Exposure" and "Mobile Application Discovery". This information seamlessly integrates into traditional vulnerability management programs, enabling prioritized patching and remediation efforts.

• Malware Analysis: By monitoring "Online Sharing Exposure" (like Pastebin, GitHub Gist) and "code repositories," ThreatNG can detect the sharing of malicious code or exploits related to the organization. This information can enrich malware analysis, update malware signatures, and improve threat detection systems.

Strengthening Digital Risk Protection:

• Brand Monitoring and Protection: ThreatNG's "social media" monitoring, "sentiment analysis," and "dark web presence" capabilities provide a comprehensive view of online conversations and potential threats to the organization's brand reputation. By analyzing "Posts from the organization under investigation, breaking out the content copy, hashtags, links, and tags" on social media and monitoring for "Organizational mentions of Related or Defined People, Places, or Things" on the dark web, ThreatNG enables timely intervention and mitigation of negative publicity or misinformation campaigns.

• Phishing and BEC Detection: ThreatNG's assessment of "BEC & Phishing Susceptibility," derived from "Sentiment and Financials Findings, Domain Intelligence (DNS Intelligence capabilities which include Domain Name Permutations and Web3 Domains that are available and taken; and Email Intelligence that provides email security presence and format prediction), and Dark Web Presence (Compromised Credentials)," helps identify potential attack vectors and proactively protect against email-based threats. This insight complements email security solutions, allowing them to use ThreatNG's intelligence to enhance their filtering and detection capabilities.

• Data Leak Prevention: ThreatNG's continuous monitoring for "data leaks," "exposed credentials," and "sensitive code exposure" helps organizations identify and plug data leaks before they can be exploited. This capability, which includes identifying exposed "Access Credentials (Amazon AWS Access Key ID, APIs, Artifactory API Token…)," "Security Credentials (PGP private key block, RSA Private Key…)," and "Platform Specific Identifiers (Admin Directories, Amazon AWS S3 Bucket…)" in mobile apps, code repositories, and other sources, significantly enhances data loss prevention (DLP) solutions. DLP solutions can use ThreatNG's intelligence to more effectively identify and block sensitive data exfiltration attempts.

Empowering External Attack Surface Management:

• Asset Discovery: ThreatNG's superior discovery capabilities provide a complete picture of the organization's external attack surface. This includes "Domain Intelligence," "Cloud and SaaS Exposure" (including "Sanctioned Cloud Services, Unsanctioned Cloud Services, Cloud Service Impersonations, and Open Exposed Cloud Buckets"), "Technology Stack" identification, and "Mobile Application Discovery," ensuring comprehensive security coverage.

• Vulnerability Assessment: ThreatNG's continuous monitoring and assessment of vulnerabilities across the attack surface enable proactive risk mitigation. This assessment covers "web application hijacking," "subdomain takeover," "ransomware susceptibility," and various other risks. The findings integrate seamlessly with vulnerability scanners and penetration testing tools to prioritize remediation efforts.

• Security Ratings: ThreatNG's security ratings objectively measure the organization's security posture. They facilitate benchmarking against industry peers and identifying areas for improvement. These ratings, which consider factors like "ESG Exposure," "Supply Chain & Third Party Exposure," and "Breach & Ransomware Susceptibility," can drive continuous improvement in security practices and demonstrate compliance with industry standards.

Examples of ThreatNG's Investigation Modules in Action:

• Domain Intelligence: ThreatNG can identify a suspicious subdomain (using "Subdomain Intelligence") that is not adequately secured and is vulnerable to takeover. This information enables security teams to quickly reclaim the subdomain and prevent attackers from using it for phishing or malware distribution.

• Social Media: ThreatNG can detect a social media post (using "Social Media" monitoring) impersonating the organization and attempting to phish employees. The security team can remove the fake account and warn employees about the phishing attempt.

• Sensitive Code Exposure: ThreatNG can identify a code repository (using "Code Repository Exposure") containing sensitive API keys. This discovery allows the organization to revoke the compromised keys and secure the repository.

• Search Engine Exploitation: ThreatNG can discover that search engines index sensitive internal documents (using "Search Engine Exploitation"). This finding allows the organization to remove the documents from public access and improve its security configuration.

• Dark Web Presence: ThreatNG can detect that the organization's compromised credentials are being traded on the dark web (using "Dark Web Presence"). This intelligence allows security teams to force password resets and implement multi-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized access.

ThreatNG provides a comprehensive and proactive approach to XTI by seamlessly integrating with and complementing other security solutions. This approach empowers organizations to manage their external attack surface effectively, protect their digital assets, and mitigate cyber risks with greater confidence and efficiency.