Behind just about every legitimate alert your IT security receives is an adversary using multiple attack techniques to penetrate your infrastructure and compromise your vital data assets or systems. Today’s targeted multiphase attacks consist of a series of steps that make up the cyberattack chain: reconnaissance, scanning for vulnerabilities, exploitation, and, finally, exfiltration of valuable corporate data.

Security analysts are well aware of these techniques and depend on threat intelligence to glean insights into attack methods and motivations. They can detect and interrupt advanced threats, apply appropriate remediation, and be better prepared next time the security alarm sounds. But all too often, they either lack visibility into certain systems or are inundated with too much data and too little intelligence. According to the SANS Institute study, Who’s Using Cyberthreat Intelligence and How?, “… only 11.9% of interviewees have achieved the ability to aggregate threat information from virtually every source, and only 8.8% have a full picture view that can combine events with IoCs.