To keep an organization safe from risks and threats in today’s unpredictable business environment, it’s important for leaders to shift away from traditional, reactive intelligence-gathering methods and adopt technology-driven global threat intelligence as the backbone of their security posture.
Due to the rising complexity and always-changing nature of current world conditions, leaders will benefit greatly from global threat intelligence as it’s a more reliable, efficient, and proactive solution for navigating this landscape. Global threat intelligence will help organizations identify threat actors targeting their systems, critical vulnerabilities, and a myriad of dangerous threat groups that shape the modern cyber threat landscape.
The Global Threat Landscape: Why Traditional Intelligence Falls Short
Traditional risk management and strategy methods are typically reactive, which means they respond to events once they have already occurred. Once a crisis has unfolded, teams are already behind the ball and no longer have the advantage of time. Instead they fall under extreme pressure to expedite their incident response time and must attempt to process the millions of data points needed to create a complete picture of the event at hand. This is a losing battle. Because teams are so bogged down with data, it is almost impossible to identify subtle patterns or weak signals of evolving threats. Without a solid understanding of the data, the team is likely to fail in providing decision makers with the context needed for truly actionable insights.
There is a better way. Security teams do not need to endure the pitfalls of traditional risk and threat management methods. Enter global threat intelligence.
The Power of Global Threat Intelligence
Global threat intelligence takes the shortcomings of traditional methods and eliminates them. How? By leveraging powerful technology innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to monitor vast and diverse data sources. Thanks to these technologies, teams are no longer tasked to manually watch for news alerts, or to sort through blogs, social media platforms, and the dark web, in order to cull together as much relevant data as possible. AI and ML work at speeds that simply cannot be replicated by analysts. Additionally, these technologies can deliver information with unprecedented levels of accuracy and relevance.
Another benefit teams will experience when putting global threat intelligence technologies to work is cyber threat intelligence capabilities. Due to the fact that the software is able to review so much data at one time, it is able to spot emerging threats, trends, and subtle patterns. This information is incredibly valuable – helping teams to stay a step or two ahead of a possible crisis.
There are certain global threat intelligence platforms that go beyond the capabilities of technology alone – they’ll layer human analysis and expertise on top. Because analysts provide such crucial context to the information the technology has uncovered, their input is incredibly effective in refining the insights the platform first delivers. This process is often called augmented analytics.
Global threat intelligence solutions will also provide teams with a series of useful dashboards and visualizations. These types of tools help break down complex data and scenarios to make the intelligence easy to understand and use. This can be incredibly beneficial if leaders outside of the security team are accessing the platform. Actional insights are truly invaluable as they offer direction to teams and support to decision-makers while under duress.
It is also possible for a global threat intelligence solution to fold in real-world knowledge. After all, relying on technology is not enough. There are many times in which on-the-ground experts can offer critical context and share societal nuances that data alone simply does not convey. Analysts are also key to the vetting and validation process, helping to ensure that mis- and dis-information isn’t viewed as fact by the technology.
How Global Threat Intelligence Facilitates Proactive Security
Global threat intelligence is designed to help organizations keep their people, assets, operations, facilities, and reputations protected for threats. How? Global threat intelligence delivers:
Faster and More Informed Decision-Making
Timely, accurate intelligence empowers leaders to make rapid, strategic, and reliable decisions because they have the information needed to do so. Without the right intelligence, they are left uninformed and therefore at risk for making decisions that do not put their organization in the best position. Having information at-the-ready is truly imperative.
Proactive Resource Allocation
When leaders understand what pending issues are on the horizon, they can proactively reallocate resources and adjust operational plans before a threat escalates. Being informed allows leaders to adjust plans, cancel travel, reallocate funds, and so on. Information is truly powerful and is often the difference between an organization that circumvents an issue or falls prey to its negative impacts.
Tailored Contingency Plans
In times of duress, it can be extremely difficult to know which course of action will produce the best results. There are countless unknown factors at any given time, and there are always unexpected issues that will continue to arise. The best way for leaders to proceed is to create tailored response plans. Having strategies ready – being proactive – to deal with the most likely threats is an amazing competitive advantage. Intelligence makes this possible.
Stronger Organizational Resilience
Global threat intelligence also empowers leaders to build a more resilient organization that can withstand and recover from disruptions. By understanding the threat landscape through the use of intelligence, security teams can uncover valuable information about their possible threats, including a better understanding of the tactics an attacker might leverage, as well as identifying trends in their behaviors. This information helps organizations to better anticipate disruptions in order to avoid them, as well as have the right contingency plans in place should a crisis emerge.
In addition, intelligence platforms can integrate vulnerability intelligence to pinpoint weaknesses within systems or processes before adversaries exploit them. This proactive insight is the foundation of a strong proactive security strategy, enabling organizations to act before a breach or disruption occurs.
Key Benefits of Implementing a Global Threat Intelligence Solution
When organizations put global threat intelligence to work, they experience faster and more informed decision-making, proactive resource allocation, tailored contingency plans, and stronger organizational resilience. The benefits that reveal themselves are extraordinary:
- More accurate and relevant threat intelligence
- Real-time situational awareness
- Avoided costs from disruptions
- A competitive edge through preparedness
- Enhanced compliance and governance
Living with threats is the reality. It doesn’t matter how advanced AI becomes or how fast a risk analysis tool is. Geopolitical threats, local government coups, supply chain disruptions, environmental disasters, cyber threats, internal malicious activity, the list of possible risks and threats is long and they aren’t going anywhere. However, leveraging the power of global threat intelligence will help. There are many third-party experts that give security teams access to this level of intelligence, and support the organization in bringing its security posture into the modern era.
Conclusion: The Future of Security Is Intelligent
Organizations that receive real-time situational awareness spend less time reacting and more time planning. They avoid costs from disruptions because not only did they circumvent them partially or entirely, but they also developed new backup plans that would help keep operations running even if the crisis evolved into a full-fledged issue. This preparedness offers a competitive edge, gives employees reassurance that their leaders are working hard to keep them safe, offers enhanced compliance, and so much more.
The blend of innovative solutions such as AI and ML with the power of human expertise is a powerful combination. Security teams looking to integrate global threat intelligence into their daily operations will benefit well from tools that take advantage of what both machines and humans have to offer.
A modern, augmented global threat intelligence solution really has a wide array of benefits to enhancing an organization’s security and resilience. The strategic combination of AI-driven analytics, security tools, and human expertise provides the predictive power an organization needs to identify and mitigate threats before they escalate. A proactive, intelligence-led approach is one of the best ways to navigate today’s complex global landscape and make confident, strategic decisions. If your team could use assistance, it might be a good time to speak with a global threat intelligence solution such as Seerist. Schedule your informational call and demo today.
