Book Image

The Foundations of Threat Hunting

By : Chad Maurice, Jeremy Thompson, William Copeland
Book Image

The Foundations of Threat Hunting

By: Chad Maurice, Jeremy Thompson, William Copeland

Overview of this book

Threat hunting is a concept that takes traditional cyber defense and spins it onto its head. It moves the bar for network defenses beyond looking at the known threats and allows a team to pursue adversaries that are attacking in novel ways that have not previously been seen. To successfully track down and remove these advanced attackers, a solid understanding of the foundational concepts and requirements of the threat hunting framework is needed. Moreover, to confidently employ threat hunting in a business landscape, the same team will need to be able to customize that framework to fit a customer’s particular use case. This book breaks down the fundamental pieces of a threat hunting team, the stages of a hunt, and the process that needs to be followed through planning, execution, and recovery. It will take you through the process of threat hunting, starting from understanding cybersecurity basics through to the in-depth requirements of building a mature hunting capability. This is provided through written instructions as well as multiple story-driven scenarios that show the correct (and incorrect) way to effectively conduct a threat hunt. By the end of this cyber threat hunting book, you’ll be able to identify the processes of handicapping an immature cyber threat hunt team and systematically progress the hunting capabilities to maturity.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
1
Part 1: Preparation – Why and How to Start the Hunting Process
9
Part 2: Execution – Conducting a Hunt
14
Part 3: Recovery – Post-Hunt Activity

Scenario B – external threat hunt

The CSI team begins to set up the war room on-site in the space that the organization set aside. The small conference room has good connectivity, cooling, and even windows! It is also in an area that has low foot traffic and is monitored by the on-site security team via cameras and alarms 24/7. The team lead has a meeting with the security team and a vice president level stakeholder to make sure the expectations for the security of the war room are well understood. They follow the meeting up with an email documenting the conversation.

The room itself is accessible via a card reader and pin. The hunt team is set up with access and starts moving into the space. The team brings in their own equipment to set up in the new war room. All laptops are locked to the desks. All equipment has tracking devices secured to them (for example, tile trackers). There are three additional remote cameras that are installed, giving full coverage of the war room...