Demystifying Cybersecurity (Threat Intelligence)

The ever-expanding realm of cybersecurity can be intimidating, but understanding its core principles is essential in our increasingly digital world. This comprehensive guide delves into key images illuminating fundamental cybersecurity practices and tools, providing a granular breakdown of each concept.

1. Practical Threat Intelligence: Building a Robust Defense Strategy

In this image, we encounter a blueprint for Practical Threat Intelligence. It emphasizes the significance of understanding the geopolitical landscape and threat actors. By proactively gathering and analyzing intelligence reports and indicators of compromise (IOCs), organizations can bolster their defenses against cyber threats.

Defining Requirements: Tailoring Intelligence Gathering

The cornerstone of any intelligence-gathering operation is understanding what information is crucial. This image highlights the importance of considering international relations and the geopolitical context to effectively assess potential threats. Understanding the political climate and potential adversaries can provide valuable insights into the types of cyberattacks an organization might face. For instance, an organization in the defense sector might prioritize intelligence on state-sponsored cyberattacks, while a financial institution might focus on reports detailing financially motivated cybercrime groups.

Collection & Classification of Intelligence Reports: Gleaning Insights from Diverse Sources

This stage involves accumulating reports on various aspects of cybersecurity threats. Here's a breakdown of the reports typically included:

Threat Actors: These reports detail malicious individuals or groups who actively target systems and networks. Understanding their motivations (e.g., financial gain, espionage, state-sponsored attacks), capabilities (e.g., social engineering techniques, zero-day exploits), and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) are essential for effective defense. Reports might outline the actors' preferred infiltration methods, the type of data they target, and their skill level (e.g., amateur script kiddies vs. highly skilled APT groups).

Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs): These reports delve into highly skilled attackers who target specific organizations for extended periods. APTs often employ sophisticated techniques to evade detection and achieve their goals, such as stealing sensitive data or disrupting critical operations. Intelligence reports on APTs might detail their preferred tools, attack vectors, and industries they typically target.

Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs): We will explore TTPs in detail in a later section, but intelligence reports may provide insights into the specific methods these actors use to carry out attacks, such as phishing emails, watering hole attacks, or exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities.

Vulnerability Reports: These reports identify weaknesses in systems and software that attackers can exploit. By understanding these vulnerabilities, organizations can prioritize patching and mitigation efforts to address potential security gaps. Intelligence reports may include information on newly discovered vulnerabilities, the exploitability of these vulnerabilities, and the potential impact on different systems.

Collection & Classification of Indicators of Compromise (IOCs): Spotting the Signs of an Attack

IOCs are observable signs that a system has been compromised. They can include:

Incident Response: This refers to the process of responding to a cyberattack. IOCs collected during incident response can be used to identify similar attacks in the future. For instance, analyzing the malware used in a past attack can provide indicators (IOCs) that can be used to detect similar malware strains in the future. Security professionals might collect IOCs such as suspicious domain names, IP addresses, or file hashes during incident response.

Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT): Valuable threat intelligence can be gleaned from publicly available sources like news articles, social media, and forums. Security professionals can leverage OSINT to identify emerging threats, track threat actor activity, and stay informed about the latest vulnerabilities. For example, following cybersecurity blogs or forums can provide insights into new attack techniques being used by malicious actors.

Threat Hunting: This proactive approach involves searching for indicators of compromise even before an attack occurs. Threat hunters may analyze network traffic logs, user activity logs, and system configurations to identify anomalies that might suggest an impending attack. By correlating different IOCs, threat hunters can build a bigger picture of potential threats.

Analysis & Triage of IOCs: Prioritizing Threats Based on Severity

Once IOCs are collected, they need to be analyzed to determine their legitimacy and severity. The image breaks down the analysis process based on the difficulty of analyzing different IOC types:

Domain Names (Simple): Relatively easy to analyze and identify malicious domains. Tools like blacklists and reputation databases can be used to flag suspicious domains. Security professionals can check if a domain is associated with known malware distribution campaigns.

IP Addresses (Easy): Similar to domain names, IP addresses can be readily analyzed to identify suspicious activity. Geolocation of IP addresses can help identify potential attackers' origins. By identifying a cluster of suspicious activity originating from a specific IP address range, security professionals can investigate further.

Hash Values (Trivial): Hash values are unique identifiers for digital files. They can be used to identify known malware. By comparing the hash values of files on a system with known malware hashes, security professionals can identify potential infections. Security tools can automate this process to quickly scan systems for files associated with known malware.

Malware and/or vulnerability analysis: In-depth analysis of malware samples and vulnerabilities is required to understand their impact and develop appropriate mitigation strategies. This may involve reverse engineering malware to understand its functionality and identify the specific vulnerabilities it exploits. Security professionals may use specialized tools to disassemble and analyze malware samples, and vulnerability reports may provide details on how to patch or mitigate the identified vulnerabilities.

Hunting & Pivoting for New Attacks: Proactive Measures to Stay Ahead of Threats

Threat hunting is an ongoing process of searching for new and unknown threats. The image provides some techniques for proactive threat hunting:

Creating Yara, Sigma, and Snort Rules: These are detection rules used to identify malicious activity in log data and network traffic. We will discuss Yara and Sigma rules in detail later. Yara rules can be written to identify specific patterns in malware samples, while Sigma rules can be used to detect suspicious activity based on log data.

Identifying code similarities: Analyzing code used in known attacks can help identify new attacks with similar code. Security professionals may use tools to compare code snippets from malware samples or exploit kits to identify potential variants of known threats.

Searching for infrastructure overlap & passive DNS: Mapping the infrastructure used by attackers can help identify new attacks launched from the same infrastructure. Passive DNS involves collecting information about domain names from various sources. By identifying common infrastructure elements (e.g., command and control servers) used in past attacks, security professionals can be more vigilant for new attacks launched from the same infrastructure.

Mass Scanning to uncover new C2s: Command and Control (C2) servers are used by attackers to communicate with compromised systems. Mass scanning techniques can help identify new C2 servers. Security professionals can use specialized tools to scan for specific types of C2 servers used by malicious actors.

Setting up honeypots: Honeypots are decoy systems that appear legitimate to attackers. By monitoring honeypots, security professionals can learn about new attack techniques. Attackers may attempt to exploit vulnerabilities or deploy malware on honeypot systems, revealing their tactics and techniques.

Getting information from private sources: Threat intelligence feeds and private communities can provide valuable insights into the latest threats. Sharing information with other organizations in the security industry can help identify emerging threats and develop more effective defenses.

2 & 3. Decoding Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs)

The Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs), are methods attackers use to carry out cyberattacks.

Here's a breakdown:

Tactics: The attacker's overall goals during an operation, such as gaining initial access to a system, stealing data, or disrupting operations.

Techniques: Specific methods used to achieve these goals, include phishing emails, social engineering attacks, zero-day exploits, and privilege escalation exploits.

Procedures: The detailed steps attackers take to execute a technique.

Understanding TTPs empowers security professionals to identify and defend against these attacks.

The image below specifically highlights the MITRE ATT&CK Matrix, a globally accessible knowledge base that catalogs real-world TTPs used by advanced persistent threats (APTs).

4. The Diamond Model of Intrusion Analysis: Unveiling the Intruder

This image introduces the Diamond Model of Intrusion Analysis. This framework helps security professionals understand the different elements of an intrusion and how they relate to each other. The four elements are:

Adversary: The actor responsible for carrying out the intrusion.

Capability: The tools and techniques used by the adversary.

Infrastructure: The systems and networks used to launch and support the intrusion.

Victim: The target of the intrusion.

By analyzing these elements and their relationships, security professionals can gain valuable insights into the who, what, why, and how of a cyber intrusion.

5 & 6. Yara and Sigma Rules: Identifying Malicious Activity

The next two images focus on detection methods used to identify suspicious activity in log data:

Yara Rules: A tool that allows you to identify files based on textual or binary patterns. Yara rules consist of strings and conditions that define the logic for identifying malicious files.

Sigma Rules: Detection rules are used to identify suspicious events in log data. A Sigma rule is comprised of several sections, including a title, description, rule ID, log source, detection criteria, and fields to be evaluated.

Understanding how to write and implement these rules is essential for proactive threat detection and incident response.

Conclusion

In today's digital landscape, robust cybersecurity practices are vital for protecting sensitive information and maintaining operational integrity. By understanding and implementing the principles outlined in this guide—ranging from threat intelligence to intrusion analysis and detection rules—organizations can build a comprehensive defense.

**Rodgers Munene**​​