Threat analysis gives insights into the array of diverse threats faced by organizations worldwide. Understanding the various risks encountered in the cyber security landscape can help businesses defend against them. As businesses find themselves becoming increasingly reliant on interconnected technologies, the need for cutting-edge security measures is of paramount importance. Leaders at the Kohima Cybersecurity Conference called for enhanced measures to combat digital threats this year.
With the increasing usage of information technology in governance, McAfee Enterprise and FireEye findings reported that 79% of organizations experienced downtimes due to cyber incidents during peak seasons. Threats are unpredictable and businesses and government organizations are hit by them when they least expect it. When these threats are ignored or left unchecked, organizations fall at increased risks of data losses, business discontinuity, service unavailability, financial losses, and reputational damages. There are also legal repercussions involved with the mishandling of customer data and other challenges that arise from compliance policy violations.
Organizations can fortify their defenses and stay ahead of the curve by preparing for these threats. In this guide, we will discuss everything you need to know about threat analysis, including how to evaluate, prepare, and protect from them. Let’s get started.
What is Threat Analysis?
We can define threat analysis as the surveillance, review, and evaluation of unknown, hidden, and known cyber security threats. Threats don’t just reside in IT environments but can loom in cloud ecosystems. Threat analysis aims to assess an organization’s cyber security defenses, identify vulnerabilities, and mitigate them before these security concerns become a reality.
There are various stages to threat analysis and security teams can acquire a better understanding of the threat landscape via threat analysis.
Overview of Threat Analysis
According to UK Cybercrime Statistics 2024, over 97% of businesses that suffer from cyber attacks could have been protected if they had a modern threat analysis strategy in place.
We can consider threat analysis to be proactive instead of a passive approach to security. It can be categorized as the real-time analysis of different cyber security and cloud security threats. Businesses can harness the power of cyber threat intelligence to close security gaps, remediate vulnerabilities, and secure perimeters. When done properly, cyber threat analysis can limit the scope of damage by minimizing attack surfaces.
Importance of Threat Analysis in Cybersecurity
Threat analysis is the first line of defense against the barrage of cyber threats organizations face nowadays. Security teams can build a solid and secure foundation by enabling proactive threat analysis. It’s more than just identifying threats, threat analysis delves into the root causes behind why your organization is at risk.
With cyber adversaries getting smarter and more sophisticated with their attack strategies, security teams need to evolve and keep up the pace. Organizations can minimize the likelihood of falling victim to them by conducting regular security assessments and cyber threat analysis.
Types of Threat Analysis
Some of the most common types of threats categorized by threat analytics solutions are:
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Accidental Threats
Accidental threats occur when a human makes a misconfiguration or error in the security pipeline. It can be due to exposed information, zombie accounts, or not noticing hidden vulnerabilities within systems.
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Intentional Threats
Intentional threats are well-crafted threat campaigns launched by malicious entities. When threat actors target an organization and have specific victims, their attacks can be classified as intentional threats.
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Internal Threats
Insider threats are the least expected out of all other threats. They happen internally and are hard to detect since they’re launched by individuals who are trusted by the organization. The worst part is that these malicious insiders have authorized access so they can cause substantial damage without getting noticed until it’s too late.
Cyber Threat Analysis Core Components
A robust and effective cyber threat analysis strategy consists of several components. They enable security teams to investigate and respond swiftly to incidents. The following are the four core components that shape cyber threat analysis processes:
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Threat Intelligence Gathering
Threat intelligence gathering is the first step to cyber threat analysis. When done right, it can yield great results. The problem is, that organizations may stick to the same data sources and miss the latest attack trends. It is important to source raw data from diverse channels and not be limited to select sources. Remember, threat actors are getting smarter by the day and use new tactics. For example, previously, threats would be launched via social media messaging platforms or personalized email, but these days, malicious adversaries are using messaging apps like Telegram to lure and target victims. Data for threat intelligence gathering can be collected from multiple sources such as open-source intelligence (OSINT), industry reports, commercial threat intelligence feeds, and more.
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Threat Evaluation
Threat evaluation is the stage where threats are graded based on their level of severity, strategy, and likelihood of recurrence. Organizations can prioritize their security efforts accordingly after conducting careful threat evaluation. It involves understanding what tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) are employed by adversaries and uncovering the nature of these threats. It also conveys risk information associated with these threats, an aspect most security teams often miss.
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Contextual Analysis
Contextual analysis adds relevance to threat analysis results. For instance, not all threats can be treated the same. There are different domains and understanding how a particular threat fits your specific organizational context is important. Contextual analysis is driven by various factors such as geolocation, industry sectors, digital infrastructure types, etc. Contextual analysis adds details to threat analysis which enhances clarity in an organization’s security strategy and architecture.
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Predictive Analysis
Predictive analysis uses a combination of machine learning and AI algorithms to analyze historical data, and trends, and predict future threats. It empowers organizations to prepare for unforeseen circumstances and prevent potential attacks. Predictive analytics works best when you have high volumes of data and myriad data sources.
Threat Analysis Strategies
Threat analysis strategies include:
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Scope of Threat Assessment
The scope of the threat assessment describes the extent to which a threat analysis is conducted. It takes a deep look at the organization’s cloud estate, assets, IT environments, and other systems.
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Key Process & Procedures Needed to Perform Threat Assessment
The exact methodologies used to carry out threat assessments are decided by security team members. It starts with testers choosing the right tools and analyzing the information gathered to assess risks. The potential impact of these risks is also determined.
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Define a Rating System for Threats
A rating system assigns a risk score to these threats and categorizes them. The findings or results established are made ready for presentation to stakeholders during meetings. Threat rating is used for threat classification so that organizations know which risks to prioritize first. There are different rating systems for threats and the general scoring can be numerical, ranging anywhere from a number between 0 to 950. Some organizations may choose to opt for grade-based ratings.
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Perform Threat Analysis
Once all the procedures and rating systems are in place, it is time to perform the threat analysis. Organizations can leverage the expertise of security teams and gain their insights for performing threat analysis. It is an in-depth process and may incorporate the use of third-party tools and services too.
Benefits of Threat Analysis
Threat analysis helps organizations stay in the loop about what’s going on in their current infrastructure. It prevents them from being in the dark and gives an accurate assessment of their cyber security posture. The following are the key benefits of cyber threat analysis:
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Continuous Security Updates and Patching
One of the best ways to build a robust cybersecurity strategy is by doing effective threat modeling. Every new technology or service introduced into business pipelines increases the complexity of the security architecture. Threat analysis helps find blindspots and apply continual security updates. It patches vulnerable systems and makes further recommendations on how to reduce ever-expanding attack surfaces.
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Risk Profile Management
DevSecOps team members can leverage threat analysis processes to manage risk profiles. They can harden security perimeters and greatly mitigate threats. Up-to-date risk profiles also assist with conducting thorough security audits and continually improving their risk mitigation strategy. All these measures improve an organization’s security potential and add tremendous value for them.
How SentinelOne help in Threat Analysis?
SentinelOne offers the world’s most advanced autonomous AI-driven cyber security platform to perform threat analysis in organizations. Its intelligent security automation and machine-speed malware analysis workflows greatly enhance business continuity and performance.
SentinelOne analyzes malicious files across different cloud environments. It provides endpoint protection, detection and response, and IoT discovery and control. It centralizes threat intelligence for contextual analysis and delivers advanced threat-hunting capabilities that enhance enterprise-wide visibility.
Singularity™ Threat Intelligence provides a deeper understanding of your threat landscape. It monitors emerging threats proactively and reduces risks by identifying adversaries in your environment. You can contextualize incidents by attributing them to specific threat actors, malware strains, and any active campaigns that target your organization.
Focus on high-priority security incidents to minimize impact and prevent the risk of data breaches. With cutting-edge Adversary Intelligence powered by Mandiant, SentinelOne curates more than 500 threat intelligence experts across 30 countries speaking over 30 languages.
The key features offered by SentinelOne Singularity™ Threat Intelligence for cyber threat analysis are:
- 200,000 hours of incident response per year and insights from over 1,800 breach responses annually
- Frontline intelligence from Mandiant IR & MDR services.
- Both open-source threat intelligence (OSINT) and proprietary intelligence
- Triage Security Alerts with Adversary Context
- High-fidelity detections, auto-response policies, and intelligence-led threat-hunting
- SentinelLABS threat research, WatchTower reporting, and curated integrations in Singularity Marketplace
- Dedicated threat hunters for unwanted risk analysis and both internal and external security
Schedule a free live with SentinelOne to learn more and try out the service.
Conclusion
Advanced persistent threat attacks on an organization’s infrastructure can greatly delay operations and cause severe downtimes. To combat cyber threats effectively, businesses need to understand what they’re dealing with, identify sensitive assets, and secure them. There are many unknown exploits adversaries can expose, which is why robust threat analytics solutions are needed.
The primary goal of threat analysis is to eradicate critical vulnerabilities and all threats by leveraging industry-leading threat intelligence.
FAQs
1. What are the 4 stages of Threat Analysis?
The four stages of threat analysis are configuration, modeling, indicator, and threat behavior.
2. How is threat analysis different from risk analysis?
Threat analysis identifies threats that are launched in real time and evaluates security processes. Risk analysis dives into the root causes of these threats and uncovers hidden security issues. Another main difference between threat analysis and risk analysis is that threat analysis waits for an attack to be launched on security tools.
Risk analysis is a more proactive approach that analyzes services, applications, and policies to make sure that security tools are working as expected and don’t have any unknown defects.
3. Why is threat analysis important?
Threat analysis is important because it helps organizations formulate an effective security strategy to help counter-mitigate sophisticated threats. It empowers organizations with tools, technologies, and automated workflows to identify vulnerabilities and assess their security posture.
4. What are some of the best threat analysis tools?
Some of the best threat analysis tools of 2024 are:
- Singularity™ Threat Intelligence by SentinelOne
- Recorded Future
- ThreatLocker
- Anomali ThreatStream
- ThreatConnect
- IBM X-Force Exchange