Cyber risk intelligence is the critical information an organization can use to determine its potential for attacks, leaks, and breaches in the digital space. It also delivers insights specifically catered to your organization by taking into account your unique goals, needs, and risk appetite.
Collecting cyber risk intelligence is an essential component of implementing a security program with robust cyber resilience, which requires that security teams stay up-to-date on all recent and relevant risk developments and events.
The cycle of collecting and implementing cyber risk intelligence includes:
Oftentimes, cyber risk intelligence gets confused for cyber threat intelligence. While both intelligence terms are related, cyber risk intelligence and cyber threat intelligence have a few key differences. These differences can be boiled down to:
Cyber risk intelligence leverages thousands upon thousands of data points to deliver the insights your organization needs to stay readily armed against potential attacks. Most cyber risk intelligence programs utilize open-source intelligence (OSINT) to gather that information. OSINT is data collected from publicly available sources that security teams can use in an intelligence context.
In the most successful cyber risk intelligence programs, security companies continuously scan social media, websites, and networks throughout the web for information on new attacks, leaks, breaches, and vulnerabilities in the threat landscape. They keep their finger on the pulse of the latest updates in the threat landscape.
OSINT can be collected from security companies — or it can even come from hackers themselves. In fact, sometimes the data provided by threat actors can be the most useful to organizations since it’s coming directly from the source.
Once information gathering is complete, cyber risk intelligence programs then transform data into contextualized insights that provide a foundation for better business decisions. To do so, any cyber risk intelligence program worth its salt will take the data it has collected and measure it against concerns specific to an organization.
For instance, a risk intelligence program for a healthcare organization might deprioritize data on a recent string of attacks manipulating a vulnerability it does not have while prioritizing recent attacks on other similar healthcare companies. This measurement process accounts for the reality that not every event on the threat landscape will be as important — or even relevant — to every organization.
Typically, cyber risk intelligence incorporates a 360-degree view of risk by applying:
When intelligence programs compare data against these control points, they can deliver the insights that inform actionable steps organizations must take to address the specific risks that actually matter to their business.
This final step might seem the most important, but it’s completely predicated on how rigorously the prior two steps are done. Without accurate, timely data, there can be no contextualized insights. And without contextualized insights, there is no foundation of information on which security teams can make confident, informed risk decisions.
Cyber risk intelligence benefits businesses by:
It can be tough for security teams to tell quality data from false positives. Cyber risk intelligence automatically vets information for accuracy, meaning organizations can gain greater confidence in the insights they receive.
Cyber risk intelligence can ascribe a dollar amount to risk — or, probable financial impact — by using data to create risk scenarios. This allows you to get an empirical view of risk that communicates in concrete financial terms how a risk event would affect your organization.
Cyber risk intelligence can pinpoint where exactly your organization is most at risk — and why.
Oftentimes, security teams can feel like they’re flying blind when they’re making critical decisions. With cyber risk intelligence, security teams can have more confidence when deciding where to allocate their time, budget, and resources.
Cyber threat intelligence primarily covers searching for, gathering, and organizing data. It is purely about finding and identifying information.
The major fallback of cyber threat intelligence lies in its name. It only encompasses identifying threats in the landscape, not the actual risk those threats pose to your business, or what may happen if those threats turn into successful attacks, leaks, and breaches.
Cyber threat intelligence fails to deliver what organizations need to navigate today’s threat landscape because:
Cyber risk intelligence makes sense of cyber threat intelligence, transforming data into insights from a risk-based perspective.
These services define and determine ratings for vendors, tools, and other third-party services based on their cyber hygiene. However, there are serious drawbacks to solely relying on static ratings to provide cyber risk intelligence. Organizations accumulate intelligence gaps when they only use SRS tools because:
These factors result in significant intelligence blindspots that can make or break your organization’s defenses.
A robust cyber risk intelligence program should:
When organizations leverage cyber risk intelligence programs that account for context, they can rest assured that their insights are:
Risk intelligence programs check data points against one another to ensure that they’re accurate and reduce the number of false positives in play.
Cyber risk intelligence measures data against your organization’s specific frameworks, controls, and risk appetite. This prevents security teams from wasting time with data that does not have an impact.
With the right cyber risk intelligence, security teams can determine for themselves the next best course of action. Plus, decisions come faster and easier when intelligence can inform risk’s financial impact.
Additionally, for cyber risk intelligence to flourish, security strategies must not approach it as a means of maintaining the status quo. Effective cyber risk intelligence solutions are conscious of the threat landscape’s only constant: change.
Looking to expand your knowledge on building out your cyber risk intelligence program but unsure where to start? Check out our starter pack of cyber risk intelligence essentials: