EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
In our highly interconnected world, a cyber attack can bulldoze a business in less time than it takes to leave and return from a leisurely lunch. The average attack breakout time is 79 minutes, but that means that attacks can occur in half that time-span. Avoid being blindsided. How? Threat intelligence.
Threat intelligence can offer valuable, real-time insights that can prevent cyber intrusions and that yield strong overarching cyber security outcomes. However, despite the undisputed benefits of cyber threat intelligence, 27% of organizations haven’t yet adopted it.
And among adoptees, some struggle to derive maximal value from systems. If your organization either hasn’t yet introduced threat intelligence to your cyber security stack, or hasn’t yet attained threat intelligence lifecycle maturity, the following threat intelligence benefits will incentivize you to quickly optimize your infrastructure:
5 cyber threat intelligence benefits
1. Early threat detection. As a cyber security leader, one of your primary responsibilities consists of identifying threats as early in the game as possible. Threat intelligence tools offer threat detection that can empower your team to adapt, innovate and strengthen your overall security posture.
The most powerful threat intelligence tools can detect as many as 2,000 never-before-seen threats per day. Once a threat has been identified, you can dive into mitigation measures. This type of proactive stance against threats ensures that your organization remains resilient and able.
2. Informed decision-making. Not all threats are equal. Threat intelligence is about contextualizing threats and reducing unknowns. Depending on the threat intelligence tools applied, advanced predictive intelligence engines may be able to collect data from millions of sensors, allowing for rapid threat identification, assessment and application of threat mitigation measures – in short, rapid, informed decision-making.
Threats can be resolved with precision and with optimal (rather than exhaustive), allocation of human, technological and financial resources.
3. Granular threat visibility. Cyber criminals are known for targeting specific industries or geographic locales with different types of threat campaigns. A threat intelligence platform can provide visibility into the threats faced by the larger marketplace, along with those targeting a given organization’s industry.
This nuanced view of threats enables you to ensure that security is aligned with the threats that are most likely to impact your environment.
4. Automated responses. A cyber threat intelligence platform that identifies threats, but that relies on analysts to respond to the threats fails to deliver maximum user value. Modern threat intelligence platforms can not only be integrated with cyber security solutions, but they can also automatically respond to identified threats.
5. Benchmarking and performance metrics. By continuously monitoring threat data, you can gauge the effectiveness of your security measures and make informed decisions about adjustments and improvements.
For instance, threat intelligence enables you to quantify the number of and severity of incidents, which in turn, allows you to calculate key performance metrics. Such metrics can include Mean Time To Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time To Respond (MTTR), among others. In benchmarking your security measures against industry standards, you can see where your security posture may be lacking, and implement corresponding fixes.
More threat intelligence benefits
In addition, threat intelligence can help security leaders simplify threat analysis, avoid false alarms, and accelerate triage.
Threat intelligence benefits over time
An effective threat intelligence program is iterative. Organizations can begin with the fundamentals and progressively advance threat intelligence initiatives over time.
Further resources
Struggling with where to start? Learn more about threat intelligence solutions here. Also, be sure to check out CyberTalk.org’s CISO’s Guide to Resilience, which can help your organization survive and thrive while facing the most menacing of cyber threats.
