Did you know that financial institutions face an average of 819 threats per minute? The financial industry is a prime target for cyberattacks, with hackers constantly seeking to exploit vulnerabilities and gain access to confidential information. To combat this ever-growing threat landscape, developing a proactive threat hunting program is crucial for financial organizations to strengthen their security strategy. By proactively hunting for threats that can surpass initial network defenses, these institutions can significantly lower the risk of information security compromises, data breaches, and other serious cyberattacks.
What Is Proactive Threat Hunting?
Proactive threat hunting is the process of actively searching for previously unknown or ongoing non-remediated security threats within an organization’s network. It goes beyond relying solely on initial network defenses and aims to uncover threats that may have slipped past these defenses. The goal is to detect and address threats before they can cause significant damage.
Proactive threat hunting is particularly important for maintaining the confidentiality of sensitive information and preventing data breaches. By being proactive and scanning for undetected threats, threat hunting helps identify and mitigate risks that can compromise login credentials, confidential information, and other valuable data.
Benefits of Proactive Threat Hunting
Proactive threat hunting offers numerous benefits for organizations. One of the key advantages is improved response speed. By actively hunting for threats, security teams can identify and contain them at an early stage, minimizing the damage they can cause and allowing incident response teams to work faster.
Additionally, proactive threat hunting shortens investigation time by providing security teams with extensive data to start their investigations. This knowledge allows them to cut down on resolution time, enabling a more efficient and effective incident response process.
The comprehensive view of the organization’s security posture provided by threat hunting helps in identifying vulnerabilities and reducing risks. By continually monitoring for and detecting threats, organizations can proactively address security gaps and strengthen their security posture. This proactive approach to security not only helps in mitigating the risk of potential breaches but also enhances overall security knowledge.
With a proactive threat hunting program, organizations can stay ahead of hackers and constantly adapt to emerging threats. By actively seeking out potential threats, organizations can keep their security posture current and ensure that they are equipped to defend against the latest attack techniques.
Overall, proactive threat hunting plays a crucial role in improving the organization’s security practices, mitigating organizational risk, and protecting against various potential damages, including fraud and financial compromise, expensive network repairs, damaged competitiveness and reputation, and costly settlements, as well as regulatory and compliance fines.
Threat Hunting Methodologies
Threat hunting involves employing various methodologies to proactively search for security threats within an organization’s network. Three main approaches are commonly used in this process.
The first methodology is hypothesis-driven investigation. In this approach, threat hunters rely on crowdsourced information about hacker tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). Based on this knowledge, they identify potential new threats and then search for specific TTPs and attacker characteristics within their own network.
The second methodology revolves around known indicators of compromise (IoCs) or attacks associated with emerging cyber threats. By leveraging tactical threat intelligence, threat hunters can trigger an investigation to uncover hidden threats or ongoing malicious activities.
The third methodology combines machine learning and advanced data analysis. By processing vast amounts of data, threat hunters can detect irregular activities and anomalies. These anomalies serve as leads for further investigation to confirm the presence of sophisticated threats.
Source Links
- https://www.threatkey.com/resource/proactive-threat-hunting-and-detection-in-payroll-fraud
- https://www.iansresearch.com/resources/all-blogs/post/security-blog/2022/04/14/how-to-build-a-proactive-threat-hunting-strategy
- https://www.crowdstrike.com/cybersecurity-101/threat-hunting/
Zoe McCarthy is a cybersecurity expert with a passion for demystifying complex topics in the digital realm. With over a decade of experience in the industry, she brings a wealth of knowledge to her writing, helping readers navigate the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity with clarity and confidence.