Risk-free and secure against cyberattacks with Threat Intelligence
Companies today operate in a heavily digitized and connected world, and IT security, cybersecurity and privacy protection have become vital. In a competitive environment, there is a growing need to identify potential threats and protect sensitive data, confidential information, intellectual property, personal information and others. Additionally, it is further important for organisations and companies to adhere to set standards to assure quality and establish trust and credibility among their customers.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification has been helping companies to meet global standards for businesses and establish credibility among customers. It is imperative to note that ISO and IEC (the International Electrotechnical Commission) has set an ISO 27000 series that lays out a dozen best practices and standards in data protection and cyber resilience for companies across sizes and segments. It provides requirements for an information security management system (ISMS) and helps them to manage the security of their assets and important information such as financial data, employee data and information entrusted by third parties.
Recently, they have revised standards for ISO 27002:2022 from ISO 27002:2013 with restructurings of standards. The number of controls has decreased to 93 however few controls were merged and 11 new controls were introduced, most notably Threat Intelligence.
Why do organizations need Threat Intelligence?
In a digital world where organizations constantly face cyberattack risks, Threat Intelligence can become an integral part of their cybersecurity efforts to help security teams proactively prepare for potential dangers. It enables companies to become aware of the threats, process risks, respond faster in case of any malicious activity, and proactively identify the next move of threat actors. It also helps them achieve an additional layer of security coverage against many existing cybersecurity issues and challenges.
What do organisations need to do?
Digital transformation has unlocked huge potential for businesses and thus, protection against attacks with Threat Intelligence can enable them to take actions to stop attacks. It can allow companies to make better and more informed decisions faster. It can help them in establishing a defence mechanism that can eliminate the risk before they affect the business or operations. In order to achieve maximum efficiency, ISO advises three aspects of intelligence—a) Strategic, which includes information on the threat landscape, security architecture, aligning with strategy, emerging threats, prioritised and tailored reporting; b) Operational, which includes information on attacks, threat actors, mapping with frameworks, gap assessment, and c) Tactical, which includes information on recent attacks and indicators of compromise, proactive detection, real-time insights and others.
Organizations need to start putting together their defence mechanisms. They are required to identify threat sources, conduct a periodic review of the threat environment, analyse current and past incidents and create defence mechanisms to mitigate them. They need to start this journey by assessing their requirements, gaps, and market trends with help from experts and knowledge bases. They also need to review and update internal controls ahead as per the ISO 27001:2022 update. These guidelines and best practices can help them better align with the ISO 27001 requirements to get a certification.
Threat Intelligence teams
A threat intelligence team can help create a well-protected company that can instantly respond to threat incidents and benefit the organisation by making it secure and risk-free. It leverages many techniques and tactics to identify operational patterns of identified or potential threats. Such teams curate information such as identification of threat sources, intention and working patterns to support organisations by enhancing their security capabilities.
The cyber threat investigations and expert services team have in-depth experience to solve the most mission-critical and complex cyber challenges for companies. These teams respond to a vast amount of cybersecurity incidents and derive threat intelligence from daily activities. They design and execute passive intelligence operations, both automated and analyst-driven, web-scraping, and archive a multitude of dark web/deep-net forums and sites yielding both current and historic intelligence to deliver a protected ecosystem. In the digital world where risks are also growing with opportunities, organizations need to recognize the value of threat intelligence and proactive steps in this direction can definitely make businesses more resilient, protected and valued.
