Is it Cyber?.. Is it a Threat?.. is it Intelligence?.. What is That?
Cyber-attacks continue to show their effect day by day. Even a small-scale but unexpected attack can cause significant damage to institutions. Therefore, it is very important to analyze such attacks beforehand. Cyber intelligence is of great importance in terms of predicting attacks and taking precautions before an attack occurs. In terms of the importance of the subject, we need to understand the concept of “Intelligence” well.
Today, we define “Intelligence” as the process of gathering news, documents or information from open or closed sources about individuals, institutions-organizations, states and other organizations, and subjecting them to analysis and evaluation. “Intelligence, Threat Intelligence, and Cyber Threat Intelligence”, which we constantly encounter in the Cyber World, are interrelated concepts. We can present the following image as a good example in order to revive these concepts in the following paragraphs and to better understand the relationship between them.
Threat Intelligence, on the other hand, is an essential part of any cybersecurity ecosystem and identifies and analyzes cyber threats targeting businesses. The key word here is the term “analysis”. Threat intelligence requires examining data piles one by one. It means examining chunks of data based on context to detect real problems and deploying solutions specific to the problem found.
The definition of threat intelligence is often simplified or confused with other cybersecurity terms. The most common case is when the term “threat data” is confused with “threat intelligence”. Threat data is a list of possible threats. You can think of it like a Facebook news feed; is an ongoing list of possible problems. This is the threat data. Facebook posts don’t make sense until you read them and combine them with information from your friends’ previous posts, right? This is threat intelligence. IT professionals or advanced tools read and analyze threats. Background information is then applied to determine whether a threat is real and what to do about it if it is. Today, Threat Intelligence is fast becoming a basic need for businesses of all sizes.
Before moving on to what cyber threat intelligence is, we need to talk about what a Cyber Threat is. Cyber Threat is an attempt by malicious persons or organizations to access control system devices or network without authorization, disrupting the network structure or rendering it unusable. Cyber threats can originate from various places, people, institutions or organizations.
Transactions carried out by cyber threat sources such as Terrorists, Hackers, Commercial Competitors, Spies, Enemy States, Unhappy Employees and Organized Crime Groups with the aim of causing harm are evaluated within the concept of cyber threat. These threats provide insight into what kind of scenario attackers might follow when attacking their victims.
Cyber threat intelligence solutions are actionable solutions. Therefore, real-time actions can be taken and prepared for possible attacks. This is called proactive cybersecurity. We can categorize Cyber Threat Intelligence into groups based on their level.
Strategic Intelligence: It is the type of intelligence aimed at recognizing the enemy. It is created as a result of monitoring institutions/organizations/persons/groups that have the potential to cause harm. It contains information on the attackers’ intentions, motivations, tactics and strategies, past actions, and possible attacks.
Operational Intelligence: This type of intelligence includes the techniques, tactics and procedures of the attackers. This information is served to the SOC (Security Operation Center) teams and can be analyzed by them and used as a precaution against possible attacks.
Tactical Intelligence: This type of intelligence includes data that identifies potential malicious activity on the system and network. These data, called IOC (Indicators of Compromise), are unusual and suspicious movement data in their structure. Tactical intelligence is integrated into security solutions such as SIEM, IDP/IPS, DLP.
Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) identifies the “motivations”, “purposes” and “methods” of attackers as a result of analyzing the identified, collected and enriched data about threats that may harm the business elements and security of institutions and organizations at any level, by passing them through a process.
Cyber threat intelligence focuses on collecting and analyzing information about current and potential attacks that threaten the security of an organization or asset. The benefit of cyber threat intelligence is that it prevents data leaks and saves financial costs in particular. In this context, it shows the threats against the institutions/organizations, helps them understand and protects them.
The way to be strong in every sense in a digitalized and globalized environment is now to fulfill the requirements of the cyber world and to analyze and recognize both itself and possible threat elements from this perspective. The words of the great strategy genius “Sun-Tzu” should serve as a guide.
“It is said that if you know others and yourself, you will not be in danger even if you fight a hundred times; If you do not know others but know yourself, you will win once and lose; If you know neither yourself nor anyone else, you are doomed to lose every battle you fight.” — Sun Tzu –
Sources :
* https://www.kaspersky.com.tr
