1. I need to wait until my organisation has matured and is ready for Threat Intelligence.
Being proactive is a proven strategy in the fast moving world of cyberthreats. Threat Intelligence will right now enable your organisation to avoid a deterioration in your security apparatus going forward.
2. Threat Intelligence will increase the workload for my organisation's already overworked security professionals.
Actually, using Threat Intelligence insights on a real-time basis will vastly improve the effectiveness and prioritisation of the daily tasks your IT security experts deal with, assisting them to make faster, better decisions and save valuable time.
3. My organization is coping sufficiently with security issues and simply does not need Threat Intelligence.
For now possibly, but Threat Intelligence ensures better risk-based decisions by immeasurably enriching your internal data in the context of an ever-expanding and fast-evolving threat landscape, helping you to prioritise increasingly important security decisions and deal more effectively with new security challenges.
4. My organisation has too many urgent direct investments to make in security (e.g. more security professionals) to be able to invest into an indirect solution.
On the contrary, Threat Intelligence gives an organisation greater clarity into where they are most likely to be attacked, what are the most effective direct security investments, and how best to allocate resources to construct security protecting their organisation from real-world threats, saving time and money.
5. Threat Intelligence is not tailored to the specific requirements of my organization.
One trend we’re seeing is how organisations learn to establish relevant data collection points and prioritise information to their specific requirements. Informed by their efforts, major Threat Intelligence providers are tailoring their research capabilities to the needs of their clients.
6. Threat Intelligence is going to complicate my organisations existing security arrangements.
In the last 2-3 years, Threat Intelligence has developed to such an extent that multiple intelligence sources can be seamlessly integrated into an organisation's security operations, through a single point of entry communicating with the organisation’s existing security controls.
7. I’m waiting for Threat Intelligence to become more sophisticated.
Whilst you’ve been waiting Threat Intelligence has already became very sophisticated, ensuring relevant, targeted data is converted into immediately actionable intelligence to provide unique insights into emerging threats, enabling security professional to prioritise alerts, maximize resources, accelerate decision-making processes and effectively combat new challenges as they arise.
8. Threat Intelligence cannot detect which malware and threat actors will strike next.
Threat Intelligence has proven it can assess to a good degree of accuracy how probable an attack is in your environment, the type of attack and the likely adversaries.
9. Threat Intelligence is a fad that is going to fade away.
Quite the contrary, Threat Intelligence is at the forefront of an evolving proactive standard in cybersecurity: to interpret the intent of a malware or threat actor enabling organisations to anticipate and disarm malware attacks before (not after!) they occur.
How to decide if your organisation is 'ready' for Threat Intelligence? Below are some questions you might want to start with. If your answers are mostly YES, that’s an indication it’s time to look at integrating Threat Intelligence.
- Does your organisation need to make faster and better informed security decisions based on concrete evidence rather than chasing shadows?
- Do your security professionals struggle with alert fatigue and prioritisation of security alerts, and are a significant number of alerts simply not reviewed because your security team is overwhelmed?
- Does your organisation need a better understanding of which vulnerabilities are likely to be exploited by threat actors and how to prioritise sensible patching decisions?
- Does your organisation need better real-time information on bad URLs and IP addresses specifically in your environment?
- Does your organisation need to pinpoint leaked data which can threaten the organisation's image or brand?
- Does your organisation require a clearer picture of who its most likely adversaries are, what type of attacks are most probable, and what proactive steps to take to bolster defences?
- Does your organisation risk failing to detect active threats lurking within the organisation or cyberattacks as they occur (only detecting an attack later, or never!) increasing the expense and negative consequences of the attack?
- Does your organisation struggle to prioritise incidents and risk pursuing a security strategy not aligned to current active threats?
