Threat intelligence and threat hunting

In threat hunting, the right threat intelligence solution matters

Cyber threat hunting offers security teams a more proactive approach to detecting and mitigating threats. Traditional cybersecurity strategies focus on identifying incoming or ongoing attacks and taking steps to block or remediate them. Most efforts are focused on attack methods that are already known. While this form of threat detection offers some protection, there is always a risk that attacks may do significant damage before they are detected – or that an unknown form of attack may slip undetected past security defenses.

Threat hunting uses advanced threat intelligence to search for unknown vulnerabilities, undetected attacks and new attack techniques, enabling security teams to proactively deploy defenses to block them. Choosing the right threat intelligence tools can accelerate a threat hunt by more than 20 times. An automated solution is essential, significantly reducing the time required to collect, process and analyze data.

Cybersixgill empowers threat hunting teams with threat intelligence drawn from the broadest collection of deep and dark web sources. By monitoring chatter, posts and exchanges on limited-access forums, illicit marketplaces, invite-only messaging groups and other sources, Cybersixgill captures information about what attackers are planning – before they have a chance to deploy their methods in the wild.

The role of threat intelligence in threat hunting

Threat hunting begins with a hypothesis. This could be based on the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) of known threat actors, or about potential vulnerabilities in systems and software that are likely to be exploited by cyber criminals. By developing a hypothesis, threat hunters can then develop a strategy for identifying whether the specific threat exists.

Threat intelligence plays a critical role at every level of threat hunting. Analysis of large amounts of security data can help analysts identify trends and anomalies as they develop hypotheses. Intelligence from malware analysis, dark web monitoring and vulnerability scans can help prove or disprove a hypothesis. And once a hypothesis is proven, threat intelligence can power an in-depth investigation into how the threat is carried out and what steps are needed to remediate it.

For effective threat hunting, threat intelligence from deep and dark web sources is a fundamental prerequisite for success. Cyber criminals rely on the dark web to share information, exchange tools and buy and sell data, making these sites among the best sources for advanced threat intelligence. Dark web intelligence can reveal which vulnerabilities criminals are most likely to exploit the near future, as well as the types of stolen data and credentials that are being offered for sale or discussed in forums. Dark web threat intelligence can also provide invaluable information about TTPs, helping security teams to stay ahead of the threat curve.

Threat hunting with the Cybersixgill threat intelligence platform

At Cybersixgill, we work to help security professionals continuously expose the earliest indications of risk – before OSINT distributes them, before threat actors deploy them and before incident responders report them. Our threat intelligence collection capabilities – the broadest in the industry – enable us to covertly extract data from a wide range of sources, enrich it with context for greater insight and empower our customers to seamlessly integrate it into their security technology stack.

Our fully automated threat intelligence solutions enable threat hunting and security teams to more effectively fight cybercrime, deploy phishing protection programs, identify data leaks, prevent fraud, remediate vulnerabilities and amplify incident response – all in real time.

Our platform includes:

Investigative Portal. Providing exclusive access to our full body of collected intel from the deep, dark and clear web, the Cybersixgill Investigative Portal provides the threat intelligence that threat hunting teams need to act quickly and protect the organization. With the Investigative Portal, security analysts can research the TTPs of specific threat actors, detect interactions between threat actors in real time, take a deep dive into any escalation and trigger the right playbooks to block emerging threats.
API Integration. Cybersixgill’s vast collection of cyber threat intelligence data can also be consumed via an application programming interface (API) that integrates directly into existing workflows and system architectures to address multiple use cases & functionalities. The API offering supports database queries and query-based notifications, actionable alerts tailored to your organizational assets, automated feed of malicious IOCs, detection of leaked user credentials, real-time feed of CVE-related events and developments, multi-tenant (MSSP) configurations and more. A new integration per customer request can be created within a week.

Click here to view our full portfolio of threat intelligence solutions

Advantages for cyber threat hunting

With Cybersixgill’s threat intelligence and threat hunting solutions, security teams can:

Hunt down threats using the only fully automated underground intelligence solution to investigate threat actors’ capabilities, behavior, goals and methods.
Organize, analyze and share intelligence throughout the organization to eliminate future threats.
Rely on asset-driven alerts by uploading assets such as IPs, domains, Bin numbers and names of executives to the Investigative Portal, getting alerts whenever a threat targeting these assets is detected.
Prioritize vulnerabilities based on dark web chatter about what threat actors are actively targeting.
Learn more about any threat or actor with comprehensive intelligence about their mindset, timeline, TTPs and more.
Integrate Cybersixgill threat intelligence into other threat hunting and cybersecurity tools such as SIEM, SOAR, vulnerability management and firewalls.

Why Cybersixgill?

Cybersixgill captures, processes and alerts teams to emerging threats, TTPs and IOCs as they surface on the clear, deep and dark web. Our fully automated collection and source-infiltration capabilities can scrape data that is inaccessible to other vendors. We collect data from 10 times more dark web sources and 13 times more instant messaging apps than our competitors, extracting data 24 times faster.

Using advanced AI and machine learning algorithms, we prioritize, score and enrich data to provide intelligence that’s tailored to the unique assets and attack surface of each customer. By publishing profiles and identifying behavioral patterns, we give cybersecurity teams added time to apply practical solutions to address areas of risk exposure – before new attacks are launched.

FAQs

What is threat intelligence?

Threat intelligence is knowledge that security teams use to identify, analyze and defend against cyber threats. The term “threat intelligence” can mean both information about threats as well as the process of collecting, transforming and analyzing data to improve security defenses. By helping security teams to better understand the nature of threats and the TTPs of attackers, threat intelligence enables organizations to take a proactive approach to security matters such as ransomware prevention, phishing detection and brand protection.

What is threat hunting?

Threat hunting is a proactive approach to preventing cyber attacks. Proactive threat hunting seeks to identify previously unknown threats or attacks in progress which have yet to be discovered. Threat hunters look for suspicious behavior or malicious activity that may indicate the presence of a threat. By exposing threats earlier, threat hunters can help organizations prevent damage from attacks and improve security posture.

What technologies are required for threat intelligence and threat hunting?