Cyber Threat Intelligence & Digital Risk Protection

In the wild world of cyber threats, having an inside scoop on what tackers are doing and planning can be invaluable. Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) is all about gathering information on threat actors, their tactics, and indicators of compromise outside your organization –often from open web sources, the dark web, social media, and black-market forums. When combined with Digital Risk Protection, it extends to monitoring specific risks to an organization’s digital presence, like brand abuse or data leaks.

The technology behind CTI involves a lot of data collection and analytics. Automated crawlers and sensors scour various corners of the internet looking for relevant chatter or data. Natural language processing and machine learning may be used to filter signal from noise (for example, flag when your company’s name appears in a hacking forum post). There are also structured intelligence feeds that provide known malicious IP addresses, phishing URLs, malware hashes, etc., often contributed by a community or vendor research.

Cyberthint is a platform that embodies CTI and digital risk protection capabilities. It scans the surface, deep, and dark web for mentions of your assets or any threats that could affect you. For instance, it can find if employee credentials have been dumped in a breach database, or if someone on a dark web market claims to sell access to your network. It goes beyond passive collection – Cyberthintactively provides actionable insights such as: “We found a database with your customer records on a dark web forum” or “Your CEO’s email is being spoofed in a phishing campaign.” Armed with this information, your security team can take preventive or mitigative action (like bolstering certain defenses, issuing breach notifications, or engaging law enforcement) before an incident fully develops.

A core component here is Attack Surface Monitoring – understanding what of your IT infrastructure is exposed and how an attacker might view it. CTI tools continuously map your external-facing systems, discovering shadow IT or forgotten assets, which is vital for closing unintended entry points. BrandProtection is another: the technology can spot fake domains or social media profiles that impersonate your organization, helping you take them down quickly to prevent fraud against your customers or employees.

The Digital Risk Protection side often includes monitoring for sensitive data leakage. This might involve searching for documents or code that have inadvertently made it to public repositories, or personal data being sold. With strong CTI and DRP, you essentially gain early warning radar for cyber threats. It’s proactive defense, telling you, for example, “There’s talk of a new exploit that could affect a software you use; patch now,” or “Hackers are discussing targeting banks in your region with a new malware – be on alert.”

In summary, Cyber Threat Intelligence tech lets you anticipate and proactively guard against threats rather than only reacting when they hit. It shifts some of the balance back towards defenders by exposing the usually hidden plans and chatter that precede attacks. Organizations that integrate CTI into their security operations can drastically reduce surprise attacks and often blunt the impact by responding with intel at hand. It’s like having security cameras not just in your own yard, but watching the streets around your neighborhood for approaching trouble.