In 2024, the number of cyber attacks and the costs of cybercriminal activity are growing exponentially. According to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024, the average cost of a data breach rose to $4.88 million in 2024 (up $330,000 from the 2023 report). Unfortunately, even when the breaches are identified and neutralized, the individuals and groups behind them are often out of the reach of the U.S. criminal justice system and its foreign partners.
That means that the best way to prevent security breaches is to bolster your cybersecurity, and artificial threat intelligence is the promising technology that is saving companies billions of dollars. According to the same IBM report, the average savings cost for companies that use security AI is $2.22 million when compared to companies that don’t.
Understanding Advanced Threat Intelligence
If you haven’t been in IT or cybersecurity for a number of years, you may think that advanced threat intelligence (ATI) is the latest iteration of traditional threat intelligence, but that wouldn’t be accurate. Modern technology allows computers to collect and store data, while sophisticated algorithms can analyze the data stream in real-time and compare it against historical data.
This real-time, dynamic threat monitoring means that it can detect indicators of compromise (IoCs) as they are attempting to breach the system. In a world where data moves at the speed of light, a breach that goes undetected for even a quarter of an hour can result in petabytes of lost data. But ATI meets threats nearly instantaneously. Here’s the multi-pronged approach that advanced threat intelligence utilizes to dismantle attacks on the systems it protects:
Monitoring External Threat Feeds
The cybersecurity community shares information about new threats and malware on a daily basis. An advanced threat intelligence system collects information from these channels to improve its ability to defend against burgeoning risks.
Dark Web Monitoring
Many criminal organizations share information via the dark web — an online exchange that operates like the internet but requires special access. This is a useful source of information for an ATI system to uncover heretofore unrecognized threats.
Analyzing Internal Network Data
As internal parties use the system, they establish patterns that the ATI system is able to recognize. When there are aberrations from these patterns, the cyber defense system determines whether they are true indicators of compromise or the types of routine abnormalities that occur when you have teams of people operating systems.
Predictive Analysis
This is one of the features that separates advanced threat intelligence from more traditional cyber defense systems. ATI uses machine learning algorithms, behavioral analytics, and AI to predict how malicious programs, as well as hackers, might attack a system. By predicting these sorts of attacks, the ATI can take measures to defend against them and report the vulnerabilities before they are exploited. In other words, the ATI is attempting to discover exploits even ahead of their zero-day.
Contextualized Intelligence
When an advanced threat intelligence system identifies a threat, it contextualizes it for the human team that is monitoring it. Some of the information that an ATI can provide includes:
The nature of the attacker. For example, single-actor vs. a group, private attacker vs. nation-state, etc.
The intent of the attack. Is the purpose of the attack to hold data for ransom? Sell the data? Or are the attackers just trying to disrupt the operation for commercial or political gain?
Quantifying and qualifying the risk. The ATI ranks and grades the risk to the host system. Additionally, it will report on any damage or loss that has occurred.
Automation
An advanced threat intelligence security system is constantly analyzing data, interpreting what it means, and making adjustments to its defenses. In other words, it’s constantly learning and changing.
The Advantages of Implementing Advanced Threat Intelligence
Because ATI defense systems don’t rely on human beings to inform them of new threats or input data, they can adjust to new threats in real time. In other words, they may discover a new threat before any human being can identify it. It also has the ability to react to a threat, deny access to the system, compartmentalize the threat, prevent data capture from a bad actor, etc.
In addition to proactive threat detection and rapid incident response, it has the intuitive ability to predict known threats and threats that may not even exist yet. It can also recognize abnormalities. For example, a worker in Miami logging into the system at a time that’s more consistent with Eastern Europe.
Because ATIs are designed to provide readable, understandable information about current and future cybersecurity threats, management teams can take proactive measures to strengthen their systems.
Best Practices for Threat Intelligence Implementation
Few areas of tech are evolving as rapidly as cybersecurity. Advanced threat intelligence involves the complex aspects of machine learning, big data, and AI algorithms. For this reason, IT departments lacking specific knowledge and experience with ATIs should partner with a MSSP, like Flagler.io. Our teams can help select the correct advanced threat intelligence platform for your operations and implement and monitor it. Here are the best practices that we employ to ensure the highest levels of protection for our clients:
Selection of a threat intelligence platform. Some of the better-known options include IBM X-Force, Palo Alto Networks AutoFocus, and Recorder Future.
Customizing a lifecycle for the system: data collection from internal and external sources, analysis, monitoring, and implementation.
Developing threat-hunting behaviors.
Customizing incident responses. For example, parameters should be established for when the system should deny access to a suspicious login.
Helping the in-house team learn to use the new system.
Monitoring and optimizing the system.
Flagler’s Expertise in Threat Intelligence
As one of the top managed service providers (MSP) and managed security service providers (MSSP) in the field, Flagler.io has had to evolve with the advent of advanced threat intelligence platforms. We provide our clients with tailored cybersecurity solutions, real-time threat analysis, and incident response. We can work with your existing IT and cybersecurity teams to help them offer your company the best protection possible.
In the world of cyber criminals, the selection of targets often comes down to which companies have the weakest cyber defenses. Bolster your data security by adopting advanced threat intelligence. Contact Flagler.io to begin strengthening your cyber defenses.