Many security teams face information divisions, which can lead to disagreements over security activities. And wherever they are, blind spots undermine the team’s ability to identify, protecting against responding to immediate security threats. Today’s dangers now include malicious computer programming, advanced progressive threats (APT), internal threats, and vulnerability to cloud-based computer services, beyond which antivirus software can handle it. With the ever-disappearing perimeter of protected IT infrastructure and remote employees, businesses face more complex risks and security threats than ever before. Against the backdrop of this ever-threatening and ever-changing cloud, security experts have embraced a new way of thinking — assuming that violations have occurred and will happen.
Developed automatically and AI-enabled, the online threat management system can help combat today’s advanced cybercrime attacks. It gives security teams the visibility they need to succeed. By integrating security data, security teams can navigate confidently, identify endangered and endangered data across networks at thousands of points and between clouds. The benefits of this legal approach include prioritizing better control, faster detection of threats, and more effective threat threats.
This white paper helps Security Leaders access and officially define a threat management plan. Our guide outlines the key skills of the threat management system, the processes that link these skills, and the additional methods of managing threats that include the comprehensive Information Security function.
Threat Management Basics
Collecting, processing, and using knowledge of threats facing the organization to proactively improve protect, detect, and respond controls before threats are fully realized. Threat management stands in contrast to vulnerability management, which focuses on mitigating known vulnerabilities—mainly through patching and updating controls.
Capabilities of Threat Management
Although threat management programs vary by organization, conversations with leading CISOs reveal that threat management typically consists of five capabilities: security analytics, threat intelligence, threat modelling, hunting, and campaign tracking.
- Threat Intelligence—Collecting and combining threat intelligence to gain deeper knowledge of adversaries’ methods and intentions; intelligence sources include third-party indicator of comprise (IOC) feeds, Information Sharing and Analytics Centers (ISACs), news sources (e.g., our Daily Security Briefing), government agencies, and other corporate functions such as Legal, HR, Physical Security, or PR.
- Threat Modelling—Using the knowledge of vulnerabilities, adversaries, and the business to inform an understanding of how threats might affect the organization before those threats are actually realized.
- Security Analytics—Acquiring, storing, and correlating large, diverse datasets to gain insight that helps achieve security and business objectives; for example, security analytics can be used to detect signature-less attacks based on suspicious activities, prevent customer fraud spanning multiple business units, or investigate the scope of current incidents by querying historical data.
- Hunting—Dedicating individuals within Security who use threat models and technical expertise to develop and validate new detection logic and scale these efforts using analytics and automation.
- Campaign Tracking—Investigating past attacks and threat intelligence to sufficiently attribute, connect, and track attackers’ campaigns against the organization; these efforts can reveal attackers’ identities, locations, motives, methods, and objectives.
Understanding the Process
The core threat management process works as follows:
First, information Security collects and aggregates raw threat intelligence from internal and external sources, such as IOC feeds, ISACs, and other corporate functions.
Second, this intelligence then feeds into a formal threat modelling exercise that combines threat intelligence with knowledge of vulnerabilities and the business to better understand how specific threats might affect the organization.
Finally, Security uses a prioritized list of threats and their potential impacts to inspire and prioritize new security analytics threat detection ideas. This includes writing new detection logic, guiding data access needs, and even directing new investment in analytics initiatives. Detected incidents or new insights from security analytics then inform threat intelligence collection, thus completing a single rotation around the core threat management process.
Threat Management and Information Security Functions
The capabilities of a threat management program inform and improve a range of security activities and groups across the function, from incident response and risk assessment to board reporting and strategic planning.
Information Security functions use threat management capabilities to inform other security activities and groups such as:
Vulnerability Management—Threat modelling helps Security understand how threats may impact the organization and thus informs how vulnerabilities are prioritized or managed. For example, Security may prioritize certain patches over others or may disproportionately invest in certain mitigating controls over others.
Risk Assessment—Threat modelling informs Security’s risk assessments at all levels. A better understanding of the specific threats facing the organization, and how those threats may be realized, refines Security’s ability to assess risk and make better-informed control recommendations to business partners or risk reports to business stakeholders.
Employee Awareness—Threat modelling provides insight into attackers’ objectives and methods, which informs how Security can better tailor employee awareness efforts. For example, Security may increase awareness training for specific groups within the organization that attackers seem likely to target.
Strategic Planning—Threat modelling provides Security better insight into how strategic priorities do (or do not) mitigate the specific threats facing the organization. For example, Security may make different investment trade-off decisions based on threat modelling results, or the function may use threat models to justify certain investment decisions counter to C-suite or board expectations.
Board Reporting—Campaign tracking, and attacker attribution by extension, can provide assurance to the C-suite and board that Security understands and can track threats facing the organization. For example, Security may use attacker attribution to get buy-in for additional funding, or the function may use attribution during an incident to demonstrate that it has a handle on the situation. Lastly, putting a name or face to specific threats makes cybersecurity issues easier to relate to and understand. This approach can be used to craft more compelling stories that capture the attention and support of senior leaders.
Incident Response—Security analytics can improve Security’s ability to detect and investigate incidents in real time. This improves the incident response team’s ability to begin its response earlier in the attack and reveals valuable context and information as the incident unfolds. For example, analytics enables real-time querying of historical data to understand the extent of an attack or test hypotheses on similar attacks that adversaries may have recently launched as part of the same campaign.
Security Operations Center (SOC)—Hunters that develop new detection ideas and then scale them via security analytics help the security operations center better detect and triage incidents as they occur. For example, hunters can develop data correlations that uncover signature-less attacks or write detection logic that offers better context on the severity of detected incidents.
Kanoo Elite, with its years of experience in providing Threat Management Frameworks and assisting organizations to secure their environments, we are the industry leader to help you formally define your threat management program to better anticipate and manage threats facing your organization. Our programs consist of at least the three core activities: threat intelligence, threat modelling, and security analytics. Collectively, with these capabilities, we help your Information Security functions prioritize controls that address actual threats, detect incidents faster, and make threat intelligence more actionable to your organization. Our threat management solutions also informs a range of security activities such as vulnerability management, strategic planning, employee awareness, and board reporting.
