Cyber threat intelligence (CTI) is a subfield of cybersecurity that focuses on the structured collection, analysis, and dissemination of data regarding potential or existing cyber threats. It provides organizations with the insights necessary to anticipate, prevent, and respond to cyberattacks by understanding the behavior of threat actors, their tactics, and the vulnerabilities they exploit. Cyber threat intelligence sources include open source intelligence, social media intelligence, human Intelligence, technical intelligence, device log files, forensically acquired data or intelligence from the internet traffic and data derived for the deep and dark web.

In recent years, threat intelligence has become a crucial part of companies' cyber security strategy since it allows companies to be more proactive in their approach and determine which threats represent the greatest risks to a business. This puts companies on a more proactive front, actively trying to find their vulnerabilities and preventing hacks before they happen. This method is gaining importance in recent years since, as IBM estimates, the most common method companies are hacked is via threat exploitation (47% of all attacks).

Threat vulnerabilities have risen in recent years also due to the COVID-19 pandemic and more people working from home - which makes companies' data more vulnerable. Due to the growing threats on one hand, and the growing sophistication needed for threat intelligence, many companies have opted in recent years to outsource their threat intelligence activities to a managed security provider (MSSP).

The process of developing cyber threat intelligence is a circular and continuous process, known as the intelligence cycle, which is composed of five phases, carried out by intelligence teams to provide to leadership relevant and convenient intelligence to reduce danger and uncertainty.

The five phases are: 1) planning and direction; 2) collection; 3) processing; 4) analysis; 5) dissemination.

In planning and directing, the customer of the intelligence product requests intelligence on a specific topic or objective. Then, once directed by the client, the second phase begins, collection, which involves accessing the raw information that will be required to produce the finished intelligence product. Since information is not intelligence, it must be transformed and therefore must go through the processing and analysis phases: in the processing (or pre-analytical phase) the raw information is filtered and prepared for analysis through a series of techniques (decryption, language translation, data reduction, etc.); In the analysis phase, organized information is transformed into intelligence. Finally, the dissemination phase, in which the newly selected threat intelligence is sent to the various users for their use.

There are three overarching, but not categorical - classes of cyber threat intelligence: 1) tactical; 2) operational; 3) strategic. These classes are fundamental to building a comprehensive threat assessment.

Cyber threat intelligence provides a number of benefits, which include: