Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

In our previous Cyber Security Awareness Month (CSAM) blog we talked about the added value we as cybersecurity practitioners can bring to the table by sharing knowledge we take for granted with individuals across the organization that will ultimately help strengthen defenses. The first topic we covered was multi-factor authentication (MFA). CSAM’s next topic is using strong passwords. Here are a few tips we have found useful to share with colleagues, as well as family and friends.

You can’t protect your system if you don’t know where the vulnerabilities lie or what aspects of your security architecture are being targeted by threats. Intelligence is everything in security — it’s how CISO’s make large-scale operational decisions, how IT teams prioritize projects, and how responders restore and remediate a system during and after an incident.

We are excited to announce that Elastic has been honored with the 2022 CyberSecurity Breakthrough Award for Threat Intelligence Platform of the Year, recognizing the cutting-edge threat intelligence capabilities of Elastic Security, which enable organizations to better understand current and emerging threats and respond more quickly to adversaries.

Do a quick search for the top cybersecurity breaches thus far in 2022 and you’ll quickly be overwhelmed with reports of cryptocurrency thefts, attacks targeting multinational corporations and critical infrastructure, and nation-state backed attacks spurred by ongoing geopolitical conflict. It’s easy for individuals to let their guard down and think they’re safe because these complex attacks aren’t targeting them specifically.

In my previous blog, I covered the many different types of cyber threat intelligence and why gathering CTI is beneficial to security teams. In this post, I will dig into the cyber threat intelligence lifecycle framework and a model to help correlate and contextualize your findings.

We’ve spoken extensively about the importance of taking a data-driven approach to Vulnerability Management. In short the efficiency and effectiveness of vulnerability management processes depend heavily on inclusion of threat intelligence for both prioritization and response activities. At any given time, only a small fraction of existing vulnerabilities are actively exploited or exploitable.

Understanding the ins and outs of threat intelligence can be complicated for an organization. If your business is anything but cyber, it’s understandable to be overwhelmed by terms like ransomware, cryptocurrency, and DDoS attacks, especially in relation to your systems and assets. That’s okay.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” – Sun Tzu. The above quote by Sun Tzu summarizes cyber threat intelligence (CTI) perfectly.

According to Proofpoint’s 2021 State of the Phish Report, more than 80% of organizations fell victim to a phishing attack last year. Another report from PhishMe found that 91% of cyberattacks start with a phish, and the top reasons people are duped by phishing emails are curiosity (13.7%), fear (13.4%), and urgency (13.2%), followed by reward/recognition, social, entertainment, and opportunity.