Global Threat Intelligence

There are no borders when it comes to cybersecurity; an attacker can be anywhere in the world, and increasingly, attacks and geopolitics are linked. For example, Russian state-backed cyber criminals have been behind major attacks on companies and state agencies worldwide. It’s important for organizations to monitor global threat intelligence with the possibility of attack by nation-state threat actors. By keeping an eye on global trends and geopolitical intelligence, security teams can prepare for threats before an attack happens.  

How Flare helps with global threat intelligence

Why use Flare to monitor global threat intelligence? 

As with nearly every technological advance, cyber attacks are being used as tools of war and espionage, and cyberattacks from nation-states have been increasing. Your team needs to be aware of threats, even if those threats originate on the other side of the globe. Flare provides your organization with insights and monitoring that can give you an edge when it comes to today’s evolving threat landscape.

How can Flare help your team monitor global threat intelligence? 

It’s not easy to monitor threats worldwide. For one thing, cybercriminals gather and work in secret enclaves across the dark and clear web. For another thing, not all of their conversations are in a language your team will understand. Flare simplifies this process by automatically scanning the clear & dark web — as well as prominent threat actor communities— for suspicious activity. Flare’s AI assistant also translates notifications into English, so your team can read the most relevant threat news without having to learn another language. 

What do you get with Flare’s global threat intelligence solution? 

• Automated continuous monitoring: Using an automated solution gives you 24/7 coverage, so you will know as soon as there’s a threat. 
• Relevant notifications: Flare cuts through the noise, sending you alerts when it detects your organization’s name, employees’ names, domains, IP, or any other key data.
• Proactive cybersecurity: Security can be reactive, but by scanning for potential threats, you can catch breaches early and take steps to protect your data, systems, and networks.
• Translation and contextualization: Flare’s AI Assist seamlessly translates Russian, Arabic, Spanish, French, and other threat actor forum posts into seamless English summaries that provide rich context for your team.

Global Threat Intelligence: A Closer Look

What is global threat intelligence? 

Global threat intelligence refers to the collection, analysis, and dissemination of information about potential or existing threats to an organization’s information systems and data on a global scale. By using global threat intelligence, your organization is better able to anticipate, identify, and respond to cybersecurity threats and prepare for global attack trends.

What are the four kinds of global threat intelligence?

There are four types of global threat intelligence: 

• Strategic threat intelligence: Summarizes potential threats, trends, and their business impact. Strategic threat intelligence provides high-level information that senior leadership can use to make decisions about security.
• Tactical threat intelligence: Information about the specific TTPs being used by threat actors. Security teams use tactical threat intelligence to prevent cyberattacks by gaining visibility into the organization’s attack surface, including information about compromised credentials or infected devices.
• Technical threat intelligence: Alerts an organization when an attack is underway and helps block the attack. Security teams use technical threat intelligence to monitor for new threats or investigate a security incident. 
• Operational threat intelligence: Operational threat intelligence gives security teams actionable information relating to threat actors’ nature, motive, timing, and methods that help them prevent or proactively detect an attack. It is often used to anticipate future attacks.

What is TTP in global threat intelligence? 

TTPs or tactics, techniques, and procedures, refers to the behavior of cybercriminals as well as the tools and processes they use to gain entry into your systems: 

• Tactics: Tactics represent the “what” of an attack, such as gaining initial access, executing malicious code, or exfiltrating data.
• Techniques: Techniques describe the “how” of an attack. For example, if the tactic is to gain initial access, the technique might be spear-phishing, exploiting vulnerabilities, or using stolen credentials.
• Procedures: Procedures are the “how-to” part of the attack, including the specific, detailed steps or sequences of actions that attackers follow to execute their techniques.

Global threat intelligence is valuable because it can help your team understand which TTPs are being used by which groups of actors so that effective countermeasures can be developed, and attackers can be profiled.

Why is Global Threat Intelligence Especially Relevant Now? 

Why do you need global threat intelligence in today’s cybersecurity landscape?

In January of 2024, a major hack was perpetrated by a Russian state-backed hacker group. This is no surprise; Russia is a hotbed of cybercrime, both for-profit and state-sponsored. A report found that 74% of ransomware revenue is going to Russia-linked threat actors. With so many cyber threats originating in Russia and other countries, it’s critical that all organizations are able to access global threat intelligence. All security teams should also be able to have that information translated and served to them, so that they can prepare for attacks and intrusions. 

What is the impact of lost or stolen data?

The average cost of a data breach is $4.45 million.This includes the cost of finding and remediating the breach, interruptions of operations, legal fees and other fines. However, there are other, hidden costs when your data is lost or stolen: your customers may lose trust in your organization’s ability to keep their data safe. The reputational damage of a data breach may also hurt your relationship with partners and suppliers, and even with your employees. 

Can global threat intelligence help stop breaches? 

Effective global threat intelligence can help your company strengthen cyber defenses, hunt for threats, remediate vulnerabilities, improve compliance, and streamline your cybersecurity processes. It gives you visibility into criminal conversations, no matter what language those conversations are in. It also helps your teams prepare for attacks before they happen.

Global Threat Intelligence and 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.