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

Chapter 6: Threat Intelligence

This chapter has been included in an attempt to drive a straightforward concept home for all of you – intelligence matters! Without the inclusion of intelligence and intelligence analysts in a threat hunt, the entire effort will be severely hamstrung throughout the course of the hunt. It would be no different than trying to ride a tricycle that only has two wheels – it just does not work well.

In this chapter, we are going to cover the following topics:

  • Types of intelligence
  • Why intel matters
  • Visualization model
  • Threat intelligence feeds
  • Scenario A—internal threat hunt
  • Scenario B—external threat hunt

By the end of the chapter, you will be able to do the following:

  • Identify the different types of intel that could be applied to a threat hunt.
  • Comprehend the importance of intelligence during a hunt.
  • Comprehend how intelligence can be applied to a team throughout a hunt.
  • ...