Every other week we hear about another company falling victim to a cyber attack: ransomware locking up critical systems, phishing scams stealing sensitive data, or malware silently spreading through networks.
For many organizations, the challenge isn’t just defending against these threats but keeping up with how fast they evolve. That’s where threat intelligence (TI) makes all the difference.
Instead of playing defense after an attack happens, TI gives you the tools to stay ahead of cybercriminals. By uncovering patterns, analyzing suspicious activity, and providing actionable insights, threat intelligence helps organizations understand what they’re up against and how to stop it before it’s too late.
Why Threat Intelligence Is Important for Organizations
- Anticipate threats before they happen: Threat intelligence gives organizations the foresight to identify potential risks early. Instead of reacting to attacks, you can take steps to block them before they impact your business.
- Make smarter security decisions: With data-backed insights, organizations can prioritize threats based on urgency and potential impact. This ensures resources are used effectively where they’re needed most.
- Strengthen incident response: TI helps teams respond faster and with precision. By understanding the nature of an attack, organizations can contain the damage and recover more quickly, minimizing disruption.
- Protect business integrity and reputation: A strong defense against cyber threats not only prevents financial losses but also reinforces trust with customers and partners. It shows your commitment to security and reliability.
How Organizations Collect Threat Intelligence
Organizations rely on advanced tools like ANY.RUN’s Threat Intelligence Lookup to gather actionable insights quickly and efficiently. With over 40 customizable search parameters, this tool allows users to create highly specific queries by filtering data based on Indicators of Compromise (IOCs), behavioral patterns, and other critical criteria, to quickly collect crucial information on malware and phishing attacks.
What makes it unique is its global community of over 500,000 security experts who contribute daily by submitting suspicious files. This continuous input creates a rich repository of threat data, seamlessly integrated into the platform.
Paired with real-time sandbox sessions, it enables organizations to conduct in-depth threat analysis and respond with speed and precision.
To understand how organizations collect threat intelligence, let’s break down an example.
When collecting threat intelligence, organizations often rely on parameters to refine their searches. Two of the key parameters here are:
- threatName: Refers to the name of the threat, such as its malware family or type.
Examples: “Phishing,” “xworm,” “ransomware,” “tycoon.” - submissionCountry: Indicates the country where the threat sample was submitted.
Examples: “es” (Spain), “us” (United States), “de” (Germany).
For example, if we want to search for Remcos malware samples submitted from Spain, the query would look like this: threatName:”remcos” AND submissionCountry:”es”
TI Lookup results for Remcos malware submitted from Spain
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Another simple and effective way to use threat intelligence is by investigating a suspicious IP address. For instance, imagine receiving an alert about a connection to a suspicious IP, such as 162[.]254[.]34[.]31, originating from a device on your network.
Using TI Lookup, you can quickly determine whether this IP address has been involved in known malware activities.
The service marks the queried IP address as malicious and offers extra context
By entering a query like destinationIP:”162.254.34.31″, the service flags the IP address as malicious and links it to a specific threat—AgentTesla in this case.
TI Lookup not only identifies the malicious nature of the IP but also provides additional context, such as associated processes, files, and other Indicators of Compromise (IOCs).
The service displays a list of sandbox sessions where the IP address was detected. These sessions offer detailed analyses of real-world attacks, helping organizations gather critical information to bolster their defenses.
TI Lookup provides a list of sandbox sessions where the IP address was detected
Empower Your Organization with Actionable Threat Intelligence
Timely intelligence is your strongest defense. Tools like ANY.RUN’s TI Lookup simplify the process, giving organizations the insights they need to respond effectively to threats.
Get 14-day free trial and see the difference for yourself!
