Threat Intelligence for Managed SOC Providers

The Security Operations Center (SOC) has evolved significantly over the past decade. Increasingly complicated cybersecurity threats, advancing technology and the increasing need for integrated, real-time security solutions has made the role of the SOC much more proactive. It’s also become more difficult. Managed SOC providers have to move quickly when a threat to a client is discovered — but it also takes time to sift through the vast amount of data they receive on a daily basis.

How Flare’s Solution Helps Managed SOC Providers

Why do managed SOC providers use Flare to monitor threat intelligence? 

Alert fatigue is real; especially for managed SOC providers who are serving a variety of clients with diverse needs. The data and threat intelligence processed by managed SOCs can include information from several sources, including internal data from customers and external notifications. It’s easy for analysts to get overwhelmed by all of this information. Flare automates this process for partners, scanning for threat intelligence data that specifically targets your clients, only notifying your team when relevant information is discovered. 

How does Flare monitor threat intelligence for managed SOC providers? 

Flare continuously monitors your clients’ assets, with automated monitoring across the clear & dark web, as well as monitoring prominent threat actor communities. As soon as your clients’ data appears in an unauthorized location, Flare sends your team a notification. This allows you to proactively discover leaked or stolen data or attacks that are still in the planning stages This includes monitoring for stealer logs, especially those that contain access to RDP, VPN, and SSO credentials that could lead to a compromise of your customers’ data.

What do you get with Flare’s threat intelligence platform? 

• A proactive security stance: By actively seeking out potential threats, you can catch breaches early, giving your clients an opportunity to take steps immediately to protect their data, systems, and networks.
• 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 you can tell customers exactly where your threat intelligence data is coming from. 
• Context: Flare provides context for every threat so that you are able to provide the details your customers need to make nuanced decisions.

Threat Intelligence for Managed SOCs: An Overview

What is threat intelligence and why is it important to the managed SOC? 

Threat intelligence is information about potential cyberthreats to your customers’ organizations, data, or other digital assets. It’s a critical tool for managed SOC providers, who monitor risk for several clients, all of whom may have different needs. Strong threat intelligence empowers the managed SOC to respond fast to potential threats, and speed is key to getting out in front of a potential attack

What is a threat intelligence platform? 

Threat intelligence platforms are systems designed to collect, aggregate, and analyze threat data from multiple sources. Such platforms, like Flare, 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.

Where does threat intelligence come from? 

Threat intelligence platforms like Flare collect information from a wide variety of sources including networks, applications, software, open source intelligence (OSINT), and scans of the web focused on particular keywords or information.

Information can also be gathered from proprietary or restricted information sources, such as commercial threat intelligence feeds, private forums, underground marketplaces and dark web sources. A business’s own data can provide valuable threat intelligence as well. This information might come from network logs, security event logs, endpoint telemetry, firewall logs, intrusion detection system (IDS) alerts and any other internal security data sources a company may have.

Why is Threat Intelligence Especially Important to Managed SOC Providers Now?

Why is threat intelligence so important in today’s cyber landscape? 

Cyberattacks are constantly evolving. As a managed SOC provider, you must stay on top of current information and attack trends so that you can protect customers with a variety of needs.  Strong, relevant threat intelligence allows a managed SOC to meet those needs quickly, while staying ahead of attackers. 

How can threat intelligence help speed up response times? 

The faster your customers respond to a risk or vulnerability, the better their chances of mitigating risk. Continuous monitoring of risk helps you speed up their response time by getting the best, most relevant information to them as soon as an alert appears. 

How does threat intelligence help you serve your clients?

Every client has their own needs, and managed SOC providers must meet those needs, no matter the client’s industry, risk profile, or security maturity. Threat intelligence helps you offer customized service and information to each and every client, so you are only serving them the information that’s relevant to their cybersecurity needs. 

Managed SOC 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 Flare into your offerings 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.