Book Image

Operationalizing Threat Intelligence

By : Kyle Wilhoit, Joseph Opacki
Book Image

Operationalizing Threat Intelligence

By: Kyle Wilhoit, Joseph Opacki

Overview of this book

We’re living in an era where cyber threat intelligence is becoming more important. Cyber threat intelligence routinely informs tactical and strategic decision-making throughout organizational operations. However, finding the right resources on the fundamentals of operationalizing a threat intelligence function can be challenging, and that’s where this book helps. In Operationalizing Threat Intelligence, you’ll explore cyber threat intelligence in five fundamental areas: defining threat intelligence, developing threat intelligence, collecting threat intelligence, enrichment and analysis, and finally production of threat intelligence. You’ll start by finding out what threat intelligence is and where it can be applied. Next, you’ll discover techniques for performing cyber threat intelligence collection and analysis using open source tools. The book also examines commonly used frameworks and policies as well as fundamental operational security concepts. Later, you’ll focus on enriching and analyzing threat intelligence through pivoting and threat hunting. Finally, you’ll examine detailed mechanisms for the production of intelligence. By the end of this book, you’ll be equipped with the right tools and understand what it takes to operationalize your own threat intelligence function, from collection to production.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Section 1: What Is Threat Intelligence?
6
Section 2: How to Collect Threat Intelligence
12
Section 3: What to Do with Threat Intelligence

Vulnerabilities and malware

There's a flow here that most people may not be aware of and it all starts with software developers. Nearly all software applications can contain vulnerabilities, especially as they grow and become more complex. They aren't intentional; rather, unintended flaws exist due to any number of reasons, including improper coding implementation, configuration issues, and even just bad coding standards. These vulnerabilities, if left unaddressed, can be exploited and not necessarily directly by threat actors.

Vulnerabilities and exploits

Vulnerability identification is crucial for the attack chain to begin as often, the initial entry is through exploiting a vulnerability in a software application. To be clear here, as it pertains to malware, the vulnerability exists in the software application and a threat actor exploits the vulnerability to gain access or get privilege escalation to execute malware. The act of doing this is called exploitation.

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