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 the dark web monitoring, and compromised credentials databases, provide valuable information about known threat actors, their tactics, and potential targets. This allows 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, including web applications, subdomains, and exposed APIs. This information feeds into traditional vulnerability management programs, enabling prioritized patching and remediation efforts.
Malware Analysis: By monitoring online sharing platforms and code repositories, ThreatNG can detect the sharing of malicious code or exploits related to the organization. This information can 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. This allows for timely intervention and mitigation of negative publicity or misinformation campaigns.
Phishing and BEC Detection: ThreatNG's assessment of phishing and BEC susceptibility, combined with its domain intelligence module, helps identify potential attack vectors and proactively protect against email-based threats. This can be complemented by email security solutions that 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 can be further enhanced by data loss prevention (DLP) solutions that leverage ThreatNG's intelligence to identify and block sensitive data exfiltration attempts.
Empowering External Attack Surface Management:
Asset Discovery: ThreatNG's superior discovery capabilities, including domain intelligence, cloud and SaaS exposure, and technology stack identification, provide a complete picture of the organization's external attack surface. This information can be used to update asset inventories and ensure comprehensive security coverage.
Vulnerability Assessment: ThreatNG's continuous monitoring and assessment of vulnerabilities across the attack surface, including web application hijacking, subdomain takeover, and ransomware susceptibility, enables proactive risk mitigation. This information can be integrated 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 allow for benchmarking against industry peers and identifying areas for improvement. This 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 that is not adequately secured and is vulnerable to takeover. This information can be used 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 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 containing sensitive API keys. This information can revoke the compromised keys and secure the repository.
Search Engine Exploitation: ThreatNG can discover that search engines index sensitive internal documents. This 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. This information can be used to force password resets and implement multi-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized access.
By integrating with and complementing other security solutions, ThreatNG provides a comprehensive and proactive approach to XTI, enabling organizations to effectively manage their external attack surface, protect their digital assets, and mitigate cyber risks.
