What is threat hunting?
Threat hunting is a proactive approach to preventing cyber attacks. Proactive threat hunting seeks to identify previously unknown threats or attacks in progress which have yet to be discovered. Threat hunters look for suspicious behavior or malicious activity that may indicate the presence of a threat. By exposing threats earlier, threat hunters can help organizations prevent damage from attacks and improve security posture.
Cyber threat hunting offers security teams a more proactive approach to detecting and mitigating threats. Traditional cybersecurity strategies focus on identifying incoming or ongoing attacks and taking steps to block or remediate them. Most efforts are focused on attack methods that are already known. While this form of threat detection offers some protection, there is always a risk that attacks may do significant damage before they are detected – or that an unknown form of attack may slip undetected past security defenses.
Threat hunting uses advanced threat intelligence to search for unknown vulnerabilities, undetected attacks and new attack techniques, enabling security teams to proactively deploy defenses to block them. Choosing the right threat intelligence tools can accelerate a threat hunt by more than 20 times. An automated solution is essential, significantly reducing the time required to collect, process and analyze data.
What technologies are required for threat intelligence & threat hunting?
Superior threat intelligence and threat hunting solutions rely on dark web monitoring to better understand the intentions and TTPs of attackers. The dark web is where cyber criminals go to exchange information and to buy and sell data and tools they will use in attacks. By monitoring chatter on forums, illicit marketplaces and messaging boards on the dark web, threat intelligence and threat hunting solutions can more accurately identify and block emerging threats.
The role of threat intelligence in threat hunting
Threat hunting begins with a hypothesis. This could be based on the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) of known threat actors, or about potential vulnerabilities in systems and software that are likely to be exploited by cyber criminals. By developing a hypothesis, threat hunters can then develop a strategy for identifying whether the specific threat exists.
Threat intelligence plays a critical role at every level of threat hunting. Analysis of large amounts of security data can help analysts identify trends and anomalies as they develop hypotheses. Intelligence from malware analysis, dark web monitoring and vulnerability scans can help prove or disprove a hypothesis. And once a hypothesis is proven, threat intelligence can power an in-depth investigation into how the threat is carried out and what steps are needed to remediate it.
For effective threat hunting, threat intelligence from deep and dark web sources is a fundamental prerequisite for success. Cyber criminals rely on the dark web to share information, exchange tools and buy and sell data, making these sites among the best sources for advanced threat intelligence. Dark web intelligence can reveal which vulnerabilities criminals are most likely to exploit the near future, as well as the types of stolen data and credentials that are being offered for sale or discussed in forums. Dark web threat intelligence can also provide invaluable information about TTPs, helping security teams to stay ahead of the threat curve.
