What is threat intelligence?

Cyber threat intelligence is the collection, processing, and analysis of data that helps experts understand how threat actors behave and how you can mitigate attacks before they cause any real harm.

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Why is threat intelligence important?

By utilizing threat intelligence, experts can optimize your organization’s cybersecurity to stay ahead of pertinent threats.

A man sitting on a pile of folders, performing threat intelligence analysis on different cyber threats.

A scientist pointing at a document that contains threat intelligence findings on thwarting cyber threats.

A man and a woman sharing threat intelligence data to develop common measures against cyber threats.

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Data loss prevention
Organizations that use threat intelligence can spot vulnerabilities and loopholes that would otherwise enable attackers to steal and leak sensitive company data.
Establishment of safety measures
Cyberattack data analysis allows you to find patterns in these threats and use them to put relevant security measures in place.
Information sharing
Cybersecurity professionals share their insights with the community to build a collective knowledge database.
Fraud prevention
Threat intelligence can help create automated systems that prevent payment fraud and malicious account takeovers.

The threat intelligence lifecycle

The threat intelligence lifecycle is the iterative process comprised of six distinctive phases for collecting, managing, and deploying threat intelligence.

Planning and direction

The threat intelligence lifecycle begins by assessing the possible threats and determining which processes it will focus on.

Collection

Once it has made a preliminary assessment, the threat intelligence team shifts its focus to identifying and gathering relevant data.

Processing and exploitation

Before moving on to analysis, threat intelligence teams converts the collected data into a unified, cohesive system.

Analysis

The threat intelligence team analyzes the data, resulting in useful information for making cybersecurity decisions within the organization.

Dissemination

The threat intelligence team presents its conclusions to the main stakeholders and makes recommendations to address the issues.

Feedback

After studying the team’s conclusions, the stakeholders provide their own thoughts. The back-and-forth continues until a satisfactory decision is reached.

Five types of threat intelligence

Security teams and analysts recognize five main types of threat intelligence: tactical, operational, strategic, technical, and contextual.

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Tactical
Tactical intelligence is the most basic form of threat intelligence. It identifies, analyzes, and eliminates specific threats, like suspicious traffic that may indicate botnet operations.
Operational
Operational threat intelligence involves studying cyberthreat trends to identify future attacks — for example, examining social engineering attempts (like phishing emails) and scouting out planned cybercrimes.
Strategic
Strategic threat intelligence refers to the broad threat analysis done for the benefit of the organization’s decision makers to help them avoid data breaches and ransomware attacks.
Technical
Technical threat intelligence involves analyzing low-level technical details to identify indicators of compromise. The identified exploits and attack patterns inform the development of cybersecurity tools.
Contextual
Contextual threat intelligence focuses on the circumstances of a particular sector. For example, luxury goods companies don’t have to worry about cyber warfare from hostile nation state threat actors, but government agencies do.

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Threat intelligence and NordVPN

At NordVPN, we make extensive use of threat intelligence to develop tools for your everyday security and privacy online. Our VPN security is informed by a careful analysis of potential attacks against both individual users and our organization as a whole.

We also aim to provide a threat intelligence platform for regular internet users. If you are interested in learning about prominent threats, have a look at NordVPN’s cybersecurity glossary and our Threat Center. By educating yourself on current and emerging cyber threats, you will be able to sidestep costly issues in the future.

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Frequently asked questions

What sources do threat intelligence experts use?

Threat intelligence teams can gather data from various online sources, like databases meant for sharing information about cyberattacks and other cybersecurity professionals sharing their knowledge.

What is actionable threat intelligence?

Actionable threat intelligence is relevant information that has been analyzed, processed, and contextualized from raw data. It can be used to make decisions and take actions.

Who benefits from cyber threat intelligence?

Threat intelligence benefits everyone:

General public: By learning about prominent threats that could affect them (such as zero-day exploits or malware), members of the public can take steps to patch their devices or change their online habits.
Cybersecurity professionals: Threat intelligence is vital to effectively secure the organization’s attack surface. Security analysts use threat intelligence data to identify likely attack vectors and customize the organization’s cybersecurity measures.
Business leaders: Strategic threat intelligence helps management understand the threats that their organization is facing and make informed decisions. For example, deploying new software may cut down on operational expenses but expose the company to more data breach scenarios.
Government officials: Threat intelligence helps government agencies identify the most likely threat actors and reinforce critical infrastructure against future attacks.

What is an example of threat intelligence?

A simple example of gathering threat intelligence would be analyzing reports from incident response teams. By examining past incidents, cybersecurity analysts can identify common patterns and develop effective countermeasures against future attacks.