Proactive Threat Detection

Proactive threat detection is a preventative approach that identifies and mitigates risks before they can cause harm. It involves a suite of practices and technologies designed to spot signs of potential threats, ensuring organizations stay one step ahead of cybercriminals.

Proactive Threat Detection: An Overview

What is proactive threat detection?

Proactive threat detection, also called threat hunting, is a process of actively looking for suspicious or malicious activity in networks and systems. Security analysts use data analytics, machine learning, and threat intelligence to find hidden threats that routine methods might miss. 

Threat intelligence data is the collection of information about potential or current threats that provide insight into attacker tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). Indicators of compromise (IoCs) are a type of threat intelligence used for proactive threat detection that identify what security analysts should look for in their systems, including malicious files that may indicate an advanced persistent threat (APT). 

What does proactive threat detection entail?

By predicting and counteracting threat actors’ tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), security teams can adopt a proactive approach to cyber defense.

Key components of proactive threat detection include:

• Trigger: event or activity that directs security analysts to investigate a specific system or network segment looking for malicious activity
• Investigation: process of looking at log data generated by the environment, files, or other information to determine whether a system is compromised or not
• Resolution: initiating the incident response plan to contain and eradicate the threat

Some proactive threat detection techniques include:

• Analysis: correlating log data to create alerts for suspicious activity
• Searching: looking for specific IoCs related to known attacks occurring in the world
• Clustering: using statistics to extract trends and insights from data
• Grouping: categorizing data points based on common criteria then reviewing them to see if they are outside expected ranges

What are the types of proactive threat detection?

Proactive threat detection can be either:

• Structured: using predefined criteria and frameworks to look for specific activity within systems and networks by focusing on indicators of attack (IoA) and TTPs
• Unstructured: generating a hypothesis based on system and network activity to investigate for potential threats
• Entity driven: focusing on critical and high-risk entities and assets to look for threats targeting them

Some examples of different proactive threat detection activities can include:

1. Security Awareness Training: teaching users to spot suspicious activity
2. Automated Network and Endpoint Monitoring: real-time monitoring, data playback, and manual analysis to detect known and unknown threats, including insider threats
3. Penetration Testing: attack simulations providing insights into security posture and highlighting areas needing improvement.
4. Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI): rapidly processing large data sets quickly to correlate and analyze system activity 

Why is Proactive Threat Detection Especially Relevant Now?

What are the benefits of proactive threat detection?

Proactive threat detection uses threat intelligence to help organizations mitigate risks associated with sophisticated threats to digital and critical assets. Some benefits security teams gain include:

• Enhanced Visibility: Automated monitoring detects both known and unknown threats promptly.
• Timely Interventions: Quick alerts allow for rapid response to potential breaches.
• Improved Security Posture: Regular proactive measures update organizations on vulnerabilities.
• Improved Alerts: Threat intelligence augments log data to improve threat detections, like those generated by a security information and event management (SIEM) solution

What are the challenges security teams face implementing manual proactive threat detection?

Manual proactive threat detection requires security analysts to analyze large datasets and use advanced analytics, meaning they need specific skills and expertise. As the threat landscape continues to change, manual processes become overwhelming for various reasons, including:

• Data Complexity: Sifting through large datasets.
• Adaptability: Keeping up with evolving threats.
• Timeliness: Reduced speed in detecting attacks.
• Integration: Cohesively analyzing multiple data sources.
• Consistency: Varied judgment among analysts.

Flare for Proactive Threat Detection

How does Flare answer proactive threat detection needs?

Flare’s platform automates the collection of data across the clear & dark web and illicit Telegram channels so that security teams can identify risks like compromised devices and leaked credentials. Flare integrates with critical security tools so security analysts can easily incorporate this data into their workflows and daily activities. 

How does Flare’s platform improve proactive threat detection activities?

With Flare’s platform, security teams have visibility into their external threats, identifying unknown vulnerabilities that exist outside their network boundaries. Our high-fidelity, actionable intelligence is specific to an organization, reducing noise like irrelevant and unnecessary alerts that can slow down the security team. 

What are the key benefits of using Flare for proactive threat detection?

• Unmatched data collection: Billions of data points with information security teams can be used to understand the organization’s security posture, relevant threats, and malicious actors movement between platforms. 
• Visibility into cybercriminal ecosystem: Scanning deep, dark, and clear web, as well as illicit Telegram channels, for proactive identification of breached or leaked data, including credentials.
• Faster investigations: Intuitive user interface and robust data sets reduce dark web investigation time by 10x.
• AI-powered assistant: Automated cyber threat intelligence linguist translates Russian, Arabic, Spanish, French, and other threat actor forum posts into seamless English summaries that provide rich context.
• Automated continuous monitoring: 24/7 coverage scanning and providing alerts for mentions of the organization.
• Easy to use: Intuitive user interface that explains complex technical exposure at a level that enables senior security professionals to work faster, and junior security professionals to come up to speed.

Proactive Threat Detection 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. With Flare’s automated threat intelligence, security teams can gain insights about malicious actors targeting their organization and leaked credentials that pose security risks to uplevel their proactive threat detection capabilities. 

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.