Threat Intelligence Programs

The web is full of threat intelligence. News reports, scanners, social media — they’re all potential sources of threat data that can overwhelm your team. To manage the data, your security team needs to process, review, and analyze the data in an organized way. A threat intelligence program takes an organized approach to collecting, processing, and prioritizing threat intelligence analytics so that your team knows which threats pose the greatest risk to your organization. 

How Flare Enhances your Threat Intelligence Program

How does Flare help with your threat intelligence program? 

Manually scanning through every alert your team receives is an overwhelming task. Flare’s platform automates the process of scanning for threats by monitoring the clear & dark web — as well as prominent threat actor communities — continuously. Flare only sends alerts when it detects your organization, employees’ names, domains, IP, or any other key information so your team can find leaked or stolen data and take action quickly.

What are the key benefits of the Flare threat intelligence program? 

• Automated continuous monitoring: Using an automated solution gives you 24/7 coverage, so you will know as soon as your information appears where it should not be. 
• A proactive security stance: By actively seeking out potential threats, you can catch breaches early and take steps to protect your data, systems, and networks.
• Visibility into the deep and dark web: Flare’s monitoring solution scans the clear & dark web as well as major threat actor communities, to find leaks before an attack happens. 
• Translation: Not all alerts are in English. Flare’s AI assistant translates alerts so that your team can see threats, no matter where in the world they come from.

Why use Flare’s threat intelligence program? 

Flare provides organizations with insights and monitoring that can give you an edge when it comes to today’s evolving threat landscape. By bringing diverse data sources into one platform your team can manage and prioritize a large amount of threat intelligence. Flare sorts and contextualizes threat alerts so that your team can better understand which threats are most relevant and need to be addressed immediately. 

Threat Intelligence Programs: An Overview

What is a threat intelligence program? 

A threat management program is a comprehensive approach to identifying, assessing, and mitigating security threats to an organization’s information systems, data, and operations. It includes a range of activities and processes designed to protect the organization from cyber threats and ensure the security and resilience of its digital assets. 

Where do threat intelligence programs get their information?

Threat intelligence solutions gather information from a range of sources. These include: 

• Open Source Intelligence (OSINT): OSINT is data that is publicly available. It comes from sources like the media, social media, forums and any other content that is publicly accessible. 
• Closed source intelligence: Closed source intelligence comes from proprietary or restricted information sources, such as commercial threat intelligence feeds, private forums, underground marketplaces and dark web sources. 
• Internal security data: Your own data can also provide valuable security insights. You can draw this information from network logs, security event logs, endpoint telemetry, firewall logs, intrusion detection system (IDS) alerts and any other internal security data sources you may have.
• Incident response data: One specific internal source of information that may prove particularly valuable is incident response data. Information about past security incidents, including the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) employed by threat actors provides important lessons learned, enabling organizations to understand attack patterns and refine their defenses. 
• Industry and information sharing communities: Attackers often share information with one another, so it’s important for security teams to talk to their peers as well. Industry-specific information sharing communities and collaborating with trusted peers can provide valuable threat intelligence. Sharing insights, best practices, and threat intelligence within these communities allows organizations to gain access to a broader range of threat data and collective knowledge. 
• External threat feeds and integrations: External threat intelligence feeds from reputable sources provide real-time updates on things like emerging threats, indicators of compromise (IOCs), malware signatures, and malicious IP addresses or domains.

Is a threat intelligence program the same as a security intelligence program? 

The terms “security intelligence” and ”threat intelligence” are often used interchangeably, but aren’t technically the same. Security intelligence usually refers to a larger process or strategy, while threat intelligence refers to the data being gathered and used as part of that strategy.

What are the types of threat intelligence?

There are four types of threat intelligence: 

• Strategic threat intelligence: Summarizes potential threats, trends, and their business impact.
• Tactical threat intelligence: Information about the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) being used by threat actors.
• Technical threat intelligence: Alerts an organization when an attack is underway and helps block the attack.
• Operational threat intelligence: Data used to anticipate future attacks.

Why is a threat intelligence program important in today’s cybersecurity landscape? 

How can a well-managed threat intelligence program stop breaches? 

An organized threat intelligence program can make a big difference to the security of your data. Organized threat intelligence can help your organization strengthen cyber defenses, hunt for threats, remediate vulnerabilities, improve compliance, and streamline your cybersecurity processes. 

What is the impact of data theft?

The average cost of a data breach is $4.45 million. This figure includes the cost of finding and remediating the breach, interruptions of operations, legal fees and other fines. However some industries experience significantly higher costs, which can be devastating for small and midsize businesses. 

What are some challenges when it comes to threat intelligence management? 

Threat analysts are subject to a flood of threat intelligence. When an organization is inundated with irrelevant or repetitive alerts, this can cause problems. Teams may waste time on threats that don’t impact the organization, for example, which can take away from other, more important tasks. To reduce the noise and volume of alerts, intelligence needs to be prioritized and contextualized. 

Building your Threat Intelligence Program with Flare

The Flare Threat Exposure Management (TEM) solution empowers organizations to proactively detect, prioritize, and mitigate the types of exposures commonly exploited by threat actors. Our platform automatically scans the clear & dark web and prominent threat actor communities 24/7 to discover unknown events, prioritize risks, and deliver actionable intelligence you can use instantly to improve security.

Flare integrates into your security program in 30 minutes and often replaces several SaaS and open source tools. Learn more by signing up for our free trial.