Extended Detection and Response (XDR) and Threat Intelligence

Over the last few years, Extended Detection and Response (XDR) has changed the cybersecurity world. By consolidating many security tools into a single platform, XDR has picked up where Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) left off, moving beyond managed endpoints and processing information from a variety of sources. Threat intelligence is a natural partner for XDR, allowing XDR providers to gather data from across the web, and from threat actor communities, as well as from internal and external data sources. 

How Flare Complements XDR Platforms

Why use Flare to monitor threat intelligence for your XDR platform? 

One of the main challenges with EDR is the volume of alerts received by security teams. Alert fatigue is a real concern; inundated with alerts that don’t pertain to their organization’s cybersecurity, analysts experience overwhelm and may accidentally miss an important alert in the sea of noise. XDR solves this problem by consolidating several tools into one platform, but without relevant threat intelligence, there’s still a danger of alert fatigue.

Flare solves this problem by automatically scanning for any threat intelligence data that specifically targets an organization, only notifying security teams when relevant information is discovered. 

How does Flare monitor threat intelligence? 

Flare offers an automated solution. It continuously monitors an organization’s digital assets — including a company’s name, IP, addresses, and employee data —  scanning the clear & dark web for leaked or stolen information, as well as monitoring prominent threat actor communities. When an organization’s data appears in an unauthorized location, Flare sends the security team a notification. This allows analysts to proactively discover attacks before they happen. 

What are the key benefits of Flare’s threat intelligence platform? 

• Unmatched data collection: Flare uses billions of data points to provide your team with information about your customers’ security stance, relevant threats, and the movement of threat actors between platforms.
• Transparency: Flare lists every source for notifications so teams know exactly where all their threat intelligence data is coming from. 
• Context: Flare provides context for every threat so that analysts can provide details to business-side decision-makers in plain, easily-understood language. 
• A proactive security stance: By actively seeking out potential threats, analysts catch breaches early and are able to take immediate steps to protect their organization’s data, systems, and networks.

Where does Flare find threat intelligence? 

Flare collects information from a wide variety of sources, including open source intelligence (OSINT). OSINT is publicly available information that can be used to enhance security procedures, validate security controls, and improve a team’s understanding of the current threat landscape. OSINT can be split into two categories: 

• Passive OSINT: Passive OSINT involves collecting data that is public and easily available, like news reports or Google alerts.
• Active OSINT: Active OSINT involves gathering information that is publicly available, but might not be as easily accessible, such as dark web forums where criminals gather.

Threat Intelligence and XDR: An Overview

What is threat intelligence and why is it important to XDR providers? 

Threat intelligence is the practice of identifying threats to an organization’s cybersecurity using information collected from a variety of sources. A threat intelligence solution, like Flare, gathers, processes, and analyzes data to understand an organization’s cyber risk. This is critical for XDR platforms, which provide their customers with a consolidated source of information about cyber risk.

What are threat intelligence solutions? 

Threat intelligence platforms are systems designed to collect, aggregate, and analyze threat data from multiple sources. These platforms use automation and advanced analytics to spot patterns in data and notify your team. This provides your team with actionable insights that allow them to prioritize potential threats, notify clients, and address vulnerabilities as quickly as possible.

What are the four types of threat intelligence?

• Strategic: Strategic threat intelligence provides a high-level overview of threats allowing senior leadership to make decisions based on the current threat landscape. Because it’s  aimed at business leaders, strategic threat intelligence focuses on non-technical information.
• Tactical: Tactical threat intelligence focuses on malicious actors’ tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), providing insight into potential attacks and an attack’s possible impact. 
• Technical: Technical threat intelligence is the information that security teams usually get from their open-source intelligence feeds. Security teams use technical threat intelligence to monitor new threats or investigate security incidents.
• Operational: Operational threat intelligence gives security teams actionable information relating to threat actors’ natures, motives, timing, and methods.

Why is Threat Intelligence Relevant to XDR Providers Now?

Why do XDR providers need to pay attention to threat intelligence in today’s cyber landscape? 

XDR is only a few years old, and still getting a toehold in the cybersecurity industry. Tasked with consolidating the functions of several security tools into a single platform, XDR solutions can’t afford to ignore the need for strong threat intelligence. By integrating threat intelligence into their offerings, XDR platforms can provide customers with important and relevant information about risk from all over the web, and all over the world.

How can threat intelligence help XDR platform users? 

The threat landscape is changing fast. Threat actors are constantly adjusting their tactics and targets. Continuous monitoring for threats is key to delivering the service your customers need, and being able to provide both translation and context for every notification helps them make important decisions more quickly.

What is the impact of lost or stolen data?

The average cost of a data breach is $4.45 million, but for some industries, the average cost is even higher. This includes the cost of finding and remediating the breach, interruptions of operations, legal fees and other fines.

XDR and Flare

Flare provides the leading Threat Exposure Management (TEM) solution for organizations. Our technology constantly scans the online world, including the clear & dark web, to discover unknown events, automatically prioritize risks, and deliver actionable intelligence you can use instantly to improve security. Integrate threat intelligence into your offerings with Flare today.
Our solution integrates into your security program in 30 minutes to provide your team with actionable intelligence and automated remediation for high-risk exposure. See it yourself with our free trial.