Credential Intelligence

Security teams want to know as much as possible about where, when, why, and how credentials are getting exploited by cybercriminals looking for quicker, easier, and more effective means of attack. Known as credential intelligence, that information has never been more important (or elusive) for security teams as threat intelligence data, proactive defenses, and offensive cybersecurity become essential for remaining resilient.

An Introduction to Credential Intelligence

What is credential intelligence?

A specific type of threat intelligence, credential intelligence reveals if login credentials have been stolen and are now exposed online. Security teams look for credential intelligence to help them understand how much cyber risk their company is exposed to and how to reduce that risk and prevent possible damage. This isn’t the only type of actionable threat intelligence worth monitoring, but given the power that credentials possess, and the potential consequences if credentials fall into the wrong hands, every team needs to be gathering credential intelligence as effectively, efficiently, and abundantly as possible.

How is credential intelligence used?

In the most immediate sense, credential intelligence is used to learn when credentials have been compromised, leading to much greater risk of account takeover fraud. The right intelligence supplied early enough helps security teams force a credential reset or deactivate an account before hackers have the chance to weaponize the login information. While it can help to prevent attacks, it can also improve identity and access management (IAM) over time and make cybersecurity stronger overall by revealing how credentials leak from organizations so they can stop the problem from continuing and deny attackers a major advantage.

Where is credential intelligence collected?

Anywhere that sensitive information is exposed online could potentially be a source of credential intelligence, including:

Clear Web: Credentials can be accidentally exposed on social media, posted into official digital channels, or revealed through clues left unintentionally in public.
Deep Web: Code repositories may contain credential information left by mistake, and Telegram channels are where many cyber criminals go to share threat intelligence
Dark Web: Marketplaces and threat actor communities on the dark web are some of the best sources for credential intelligence and threat context.

How Credential Intelligence Factors into the Present and Future of Cybersecurity

Why is the value of credential intelligence rising rapidly?

According to the IBM X-Force threat intelligence team, valid account credentials were the initial access vector in 30% of the incidents the team responded to, tied for the leading cause. Threat actors acquire these credentials through phishing emails, malicious software, and infostealers, which have seen a 180% jump in activity since 2023. With threat actors both eager and able to exploit credentials to sneak into networks, infiltrate systems, and access sensitive data, all without raising alarms, security teams must be addressing this threat vector aggressively. That effort begins by collecting, analyzing, and acting upon as much credential intelligence as possible.

How does Credential Intelligence Affect the Security Posture?

Because credentials are such sensitive information and play such a vital role in so many attacks, credential intelligence plays a similar role in helping companies understand their cyber risk and adapt their security posture to dynamic threats. Lack of credential intelligence leaves major gaps in the security team’s ability to predict and prevent threats, and calls every user, login attempt, and account into suspicion. Conversely, ample amounts of credential intelligence leads to preventative measures, proactive improvements, and a smaller attack surface—not to mention the fact that more confidence in IAM leads to a more seamless experience for users.

What makes it difficult to collect credential intelligence?

Hackers stand to gain just as much from credential intelligence as defenders. And while there are places where this intelligence is bought, sold, and exchanged extensively, these places are secretive, exclusive, and move frequently. Collecting credential intelligence is difficult because bad actors tend to guard what they have. Making it even more difficult is the fact that security teams, in many cases, have to search manually for credential intelligence across the entire internet, which consumes lots of time while delivering underwhelming results. For perspective, 244 million new passwords stolen with infostealer logs were dumped online in just one month. Finding, verifying, and prioritizing all the credential intelligence inside isn’t realistic for any security team without the help of automation.

How will credential intelligence evolve over time?

One can anticipate credential intelligence evolving in several ways:

Larger Scale – As identities and credentials continue expanding exponentially, this attack vector, and all the credential intelligence that goes with it, will only have a larger target on its back.
AI Assistance – In response to the previous point, security teams will rely on automation to help them find, collect, organize, analyze, and distribute credential intelligence fast enough to affect security outcomes.
Continuous Collection – Aided by AI, the search for credential intelligence will run constantly to, hopefully, locate credentials quickly after they appear online and operate on the same 24/7/365 schedule as today’s attackers.
Offensive Cybersecurity – With defensive cybersecurity measures intended to detect and respond to cyber attacks becoming less effective, offensive measures like collecting threat intelligence, scanning for vulnerabilities, preventing cyber attacks before they start, and proactively managing cyber risk will all become more important.

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Flare: The Leading Source for Credential Intelligence

How does Flare supply credential intelligence?

Flare uses automation to monitor thousands of sources across the clear, deep, and dark webs for credential intelligence, along with other forms of identity intelligence and threat intelligence. The results of more than a decade of threat hunting are stored in a database with billions of entries, giving users access to a peerless trove of credential intelligence. And whenever the automation unearths something a user deems relevant, alerts go out immediately, along with context to help prioritize and strategize the response and remediation guidance to expedite the resolution. All of this flows through Flare’s platform, which has been designed to make threat intelligence more streamlined, accessible, and actionable than ever before.

What are some use cases for Flare’s credential Intelligence solution?

From hardening the cyber infrastructure to accelerating incident response, credential intelligence has applications for all aspects of cybersecurity and contributes to a more robust security posture overall. However, with Flare supplying a large quantity of quality intelligence on a consistent basis, it supports several uses cases in particular:

Data Leak Monitoring – See where credentials are leaking to fix the underlying issues.
Dark Web Monitoring – Watch how credentials are being used on the dark web.
Account Takeover Prevention – Shut down accounts before they get compromised.
VIP Monitoring – Learn when executives or other VIPs are at risk.
Compliance – Meet regulatory or contractual requirements to collect threat intel.

What are the benefits of using Flare for credential intelligence?

The most immediate benefit is that security teams get far more credential intelligence, plus far more context and actionable guidance around that intelligence, without having to spend any time threat hunting manually. As a result, they have more time to spend with better intelligence—which leads to the longer-term benefits of using Flare for credential intelligence: improved IAM, fewer identity-based attacks, smaller cyber losses, stronger cyber defenses, and less stress, both inside and outside the security team. Improving threat intelligence improves everything else, and few solutions do as much to make threat intelligence abundant, actionable, and impactful as Flare.