homepage
Open menu
Go one level top
  • Train and Certify
    Train and Certify

    Immediately apply the skills and techniques learned in SANS courses, ranges, and summits

    • Overview
    • Courses
      • Overview
      • Full Course List
      • By Focus Areas
        • Cloud Security
        • Cyber Defense
        • Cybersecurity and IT Essentials
        • DFIR
        • Industrial Control Systems
        • Offensive Operations
        • Management, Legal, and Audit
      • By Skill Levels
        • New to Cyber
        • Essentials
        • Advanced
        • Expert
      • Training Formats
        • OnDemand
        • In-Person
        • Live Online
      • Course Demos
    • Training Roadmaps
      • Skills Roadmap
      • Focus Area Job Roles
        • Cyber Defence Job Roles
        • Offensive Operations Job Roles
        • DFIR Job Roles
        • Cloud Job Roles
        • ICS Job Roles
        • Leadership Job Roles
      • NICE Framework
        • Security Provisionals
        • Operate and Maintain
        • Oversee and Govern
        • Protect and Defend
        • Analyze
        • Collect and Operate
        • Investigate
        • Industrial Control Systems
    • GIAC Certifications
    • Training Events & Summits
      • Events Overview
      • Event Locations
        • Asia
        • Australia & New Zealand
        • Latin America
        • Mainland Europe
        • Middle East & Africa
        • Scandinavia
        • United Kingdom & Ireland
        • United States & Canada
      • Summits
    • OnDemand
    • Get Started in Cyber
      • Overview
      • Degree and Certificate Programs
      • Scholarships
    • Cyber Ranges
  • Manage Your Team
    Manage Your Team

    Build a world-class cyber team with our workforce development programs

    • Overview
    • Why Work with SANS
    • Group Purchasing
    • Build Your Team
      • Team Development
      • Assessments
      • Private Training
      • Hire Cyber Professionals
      • By Industry
        • Health Care
        • Industrial Control Systems Security
        • Military
    • Leadership Training
  • Security Awareness
    Security Awareness

    Increase your staff’s cyber awareness, help them change their behaviors, and reduce your organizational risk

    • Overview
    • Products & Services
      • Security Awareness Training
        • EndUser Training
        • Phishing Platform
      • Specialized
        • Developer Training
        • ICS Engineer Training
        • NERC CIP Training
        • IT Administrator
      • Risk Assessments
        • Knowledge Assessment
        • Culture Assessment
        • Behavioral Risk Assessment
    • OUCH! Newsletter
    • Career Development
      • Overview
      • Training & Courses
      • Professional Credential
    • Blog
    • Partners
    • Reports & Case Studies
  • Resources
    Resources

    Enhance your skills with access to thousands of free resources, 150+ instructor-developed tools, and the latest cybersecurity news and analysis

    • Overview
    • Webcasts
    • Free Cybersecurity Events
      • Free Events Overview
      • Summits
      • Solutions Forums
      • Community Nights
    • Content
      • Newsletters
        • NewsBites
        • @RISK
        • OUCH! Newsletter
      • Blog
      • Podcasts
      • Summit Presentations
      • Posters & Cheat Sheets
    • Research
      • White Papers
      • Security Policies
    • Tools
    • Focus Areas
      • Cyber Defense
      • Cloud Security
      • Digital Forensics & Incident Response
      • Industrial Control Systems
      • Cyber Security Leadership
      • Offensive Operations
  • Get Involved
    Get Involved

    Help keep the cyber community one step ahead of threats. Join the SANS community or begin your journey of becoming a SANS Certified Instructor today.

    • Overview
    • Join the Community
    • Work Study
    • Teach for SANS
    • CISO Network
    • Partnerships
    • Sponsorship Opportunities
  • About
    About

    Learn more about how SANS empowers and educates current and future cybersecurity practitioners with knowledge and skills

    • SANS
      • Overview
      • Our Founder
      • Awards
    • Instructors
      • Our Instructors
      • Full Instructor List
    • Mission
      • Our Mission
      • Diversity
      • Scholarships
    • Contact
      • Contact Customer Service
      • Contact Sales
      • Press & Media Enquiries
    • Frequent Asked Questions
    • Customer Reviews
    • Press
    • Careers
  • Contact Sales
  • SANS Sites
    • GIAC Security Certifications
    • Internet Storm Center
    • SANS Technology Institute
    • Security Awareness Training
  • Search
  • Log In
  • Join
    • Account Dashboard
    • Log Out
  1. Home >
  2. Blog >
  3. Security Intelligence: Introduction (pt 2)
Mike Cloppert

Security Intelligence: Introduction (pt 2)

July 23, 2009

Yesterday, I introduced Security Intelligence in the first part of the introduction with some definitions and a rough problem statement. Today, I will get into more details of this domain, beginning with understanding risk and when to apply SI techniques.

JOIN SANS FOR A 1-DAY CYBER THREAT INTELLIGENCE SUMMIT headed by Mike Cloppert - 22 Mar 2013 - http://www.sans.org/event/what...

Understanding Risk 

As I like to say, we are in the business of risk management. In order to understand security intelligence, it is imperative that we properly scope and carefully define this concept. Different fields define risk in different terms, but in security, Risk is the product of three primary components: Vulnerability, Impact, and Threat.

risk_diagram.png

Figure 1: Information Security Risk Components.

Vulnerability - Vulnerability is sometimes replaced with "exposure." I would argue that they are represented together as one component. Vulnerability is both mutable and ephemeral. This is good, because it means this component of risk can be affected by individuals and organizations. Applying the principle of least privilege, network segmentation, robust system management, and adherence to software development and life-cycle best practices are but a few high-level examples of how vulnerability (or exposure) can be reduced, with a proportional reduction of Risk. The operative word here is reduced - not eliminated. Again, vulnerability reduction, as you will see, is necessary but insufficient.

Impact -Impact is immutable and changes are either slow or non-existent. This is what happens when security systems fail and the confidentiality, integrity, or availability (but mostly the first two) of data or systems are compromised. This is largely a property of your organization and its operational context - physical, industrial, and what have you. There is typically not much you can do to influence impact.

Threat - Threat is the most important Risk component in intelligence-driven response. In fact, one could say that security intelligence is threat-driven security. To understand, differentiate, and properly respond to threats, it is helpful to divide this concept into a further three components: Intent, Opportunity, and Capability (IOC). These terms are the MMO (Means, Motive, Opportunity) of security intelligence - in fact, they map nicely to one another, but I feel IOC encourages more clarity of thought on Threat.

Intent - Intent stems in a way from impact. It is immutable, and driven by the industry you are in just as Impact is. Typically, at a high level, the intent of adversaries to whom security intelligence techniques are applied is data theft - CNE, if you will. Of course, for each intrusion, each compromise, or each actor, the intent will most likely be slightly different. Is the goal of the adversary to compromise operational details of a campaign, or technical details of a widget? There is nothing that can be done to influence intent.

Opportunity - Opportunity is about timing and knowledge of the target space. In some cases it pairs with vulnerability, but not always. It is one thing to be using a product with a 0-day vulnerability in it, but quite another when your adversary knows this. In other respects, however, opportunity is less related. For instance, wouldn't a company's benefits open enrollment period be a great time for a targeted attack on users using socially-engineered, topically-relevant email as a delivery vector?

Capability - Put simply, capability is the ability of adversaries to successfully achieve their intended goal and leverage opportunity. It is influenced by things such as the skills of the adversaries and the resources (financial, human, and technical) available to them. To extend the 0-day example, a target may be vulnerable, the adversary may intend to steal data by exploiting this 0-day, but if he or she cannot write or obtain the exploit, then the risk is lower.

The Threat Environment

The "intelligence" in intelligence-driven response is the information acquired about one's adversaries, or collectively the threat landscape. Each industry has a different threat landscape, and each organization in each industry has a different risk profile, even to the same adversary. Understanding one's threat environment is collecting actionable information on known threat actors for CND, whether that action is purely detection or detection with prevention. Now is the time to mention that there is no such thing as protection without detection, or protection without reaction, in this environment. This will be discussed in more detail in Part 3.

By combining information on a threat with observations of activity, one can more effectively and in some cases heuristically defend one's data and systems. Perhaps a heuristic or anomalous event indicative of malicious activity occurs too frequently across your enterprise to respond to it every time it happens. If this maps directly to the TTP of a particular adversary, and you know this adversary's intent is to acquire data which is concentrated in a particular portion of your network, you can investigate the heuristic with this scoping that would otherwise be unreasonable to leverage.

More discretely, discovering the infrastructure, tools, and preferred techniques of each particular adversary, and having processes in place to leverage the data, allows you to detect hostile activity even if all but one minor aspect of an adversary's attempt to break in has changed. Let's take an easy example. If an adversary uses an IP address in an attack, you don't just want to block it at your firewall. You want to detect when it is used in the future, and also not reveal to the adversary that you discovered the attack - otherwise, they'll just switch IPs. You want to let them think subsequent attacks were successful, and then research these attacks for "new" (or "different") techniques, which can then in turn be pivoted on for further defense in case the adversary does ever switch to a new IP.

In this threat environment, you cannot rely on traditional tools like firewalls, IDS, and (especially) anti-virus. These tools can sometimes be leveraged to achieve detection or protection goals, but it will be you that is defining those conditions, based on your security intelligence - not your vendor. These vendors have by and large failed to adapt to targeted attacks, and most are only interested in protecting against the broader, easier problems. This isn't easy, folks, but trust me when I say it's pretty effective.

Appropriate Application of Techniques

Key to the success of security intelligence is mapping intent to impact. If your research and compromise response investigations reveal that adversaries are intent on stealing data, then there is little reason to be concerned about denial-of-service attacks from those actors, as the impact of such an activity is completely orthogonal to the goal of a confidentiality breach, and the ancillary goal that is often paired with it, invisibility.

It is also important to understand the threat which is likely behind certain hostile activities. These techniques are not wisely applied to commodity viruses or massive worms - such rigor provides little ROI from an analytical perspective, and tends to waste resources on a problem which can be adequately addressed with existing security tools and infrastructure. Only APT actors should be subject to such scrutiny. Naturally, this creates a derivative challenge: not only must you now identify hostile versus benign activity, but further which of that hostile activity corresponds to APT actors! This needle-in-a-needlestack challenge is at times very difficult, but as you wrap your head around these techniques it becomes easier in some cases. Unfortunately, our adversaries know all too well that they can hide in the cruft, and can (and do) exploit this.

One way to think about this is by answering the question of whether an attack or intrusion is one of opportunity, or intent. Opportunistic intrusions are generally a problem solved by existing best practices (architecture, AV, patching, classic IR model, etc), rather than this analytical offshoot we're calling SI. As that last sentence suggests, it is not the end-all, be-all to CND, but rather one component of a large and complicated affair in information security.

Coming Up?

I'm going to take a WAG at how long I'll need to transcribe the large jumble of thoughts in my head onto the computer screen. When it's all said and done, we'll see just how good a guess that is. While in 2 parts, I consider the Introduction to be "Part 1? in aggregate.

Part 2 - Attacking The Kill Chain: Understanding attack progression in the context of incident response. Expect this entry in the next 2 weeks.

Part 3 - Campaign Response: Why your IR model is broken. Expect this entry in the next 3-4 weeks.

Part 4 - User modeling. Expect this entry in 4-5 weeks.

Michael is a senior member of Lockheed Martin's Computer Incident Response Team. He has lectured for various audiences from IEEE to DC3, and teaches an introductory class on cryptography. His current work consists of security intelligence analysis and development of new tools and techniques for incident response. Michael holds a BS in computer engineering and has earned GCIA (#592) and GCFA (#711) gold certifications alongside various others.

Share:
TwitterLinkedInFacebook
Copy url Url was copied to clipboard
Subscribe to SANS Newsletters
Receive curated news, vulnerabilities, & security awareness tips
United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Spain
Belgium
Denmark
Norway
Netherlands
Australia
India
Japan
Singapore
Afghanistan
Aland Islands
Albania
Algeria
American Samoa
Andorra
Angola
Anguilla
Antarctica
Antigua and Barbuda
Argentina
Armenia
Aruba
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belize
Benin
Bermuda
Bhutan
Bolivia
Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba
Bosnia And Herzegovina
Botswana
Bouvet Island
Brazil
British Indian Ocean Territory
Brunei Darussalam
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cambodia
Cameroon
Cape Verde
Cayman Islands
Central African Republic
Chad
Chile
China
Christmas Island
Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Colombia
Comoros
Cook Islands
Costa Rica
Croatia (Local Name: Hrvatska)
Curacao
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Djibouti
Dominica
Dominican Republic
East Timor
East Timor
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
Faroe Islands
Fiji
Finland
France
French Guiana
French Polynesia
French Southern Territories
Gabon
Gambia
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
Gibraltar
Greece
Greenland
Grenada
Guadeloupe
Guam
Guatemala
Guernsey
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Guyana
Haiti
Heard And McDonald Islands
Honduras
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Iraq
Ireland
Isle of Man
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Jersey
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kiribati
Korea, Republic Of
Kosovo
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Lao People's Democratic Republic
Latvia
Lebanon
Lesotho
Liberia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macau
Macedonia
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Mali
Malta
Marshall Islands
Martinique
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mayotte
Mexico
Micronesia, Federated States Of
Moldova, Republic Of
Monaco
Mongolia
Montenegro
Montserrat
Morocco
Mozambique
Myanmar
Namibia
Nauru
Nepal
Netherlands Antilles
New Caledonia
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
Niue
Norfolk Island
Northern Mariana Islands
Oman
Pakistan
Palau
Palestine
Panama
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Pitcairn
Poland
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Qatar
Reunion
Romania
Russian Federation
Rwanda
Saint Bartholemy
Saint Kitts And Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Martin
Saint Vincent And The Grenadines
Samoa
San Marino
Sao Tome And Principe
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Serbia
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Sint Maarten
Slovakia
Slovenia
Solomon Islands
South Africa
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
South Sudan
Sri Lanka
St. Helena
St. Pierre And Miquelon
Suriname
Svalbard And Jan Mayen Islands
Swaziland
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Thailand
Togo
Tokelau
Tonga
Trinidad And Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Turks And Caicos Islands
Tuvalu
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United States Minor Outlying Islands
Uruguay
Uzbekistan
Vanuatu
Vatican City
Venezuela
Vietnam
Virgin Islands (British)
Virgin Islands (U.S.)
Wallis And Futuna Islands
Western Sahara
Yemen
Yugoslavia
Zambia
Zimbabwe

By providing this information, you agree to the processing of your personal data by SANS as described in our Privacy Policy.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Tags:
  • Digital Forensics and Incident Response

Related Content

Blog
CTI_Blog_Image.png
Incident Response & Threat Hunting, Digital Forensics and Incident Response
January 23, 2023
A Visual Summary of SANS CTI Summit 2023
Check out these graphic recordings created in real-time throughout the event for SANS Cyber Threat Intelligence Summit 2023
370x370-person-placeholder.png
Alison Kim
read more
Blog
FOR577.png
Digital Forensics and Incident Response
September 22, 2022
NEW SANS DFIR COURSE IN DEVELOPMENT | FOR577: LINUX Incident Response & Analysis
FOR577: Linux Incident Response & Analysis course teaches how Linux systems work and how to respond and investigate attacks effectively.
Viv_Ross_370x370.png
Viviana Ross
read more
Blog
Untitled_design-43.png
Digital Forensics and Incident Response, Cybersecurity and IT Essentials, Industrial Control Systems Security, Purple Team, Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT), Penetration Testing and Red Teaming, Cyber Defense, Cloud Security, Security Management, Legal, and Audit
December 8, 2021
Good News: SANS Virtual Summits Will Remain FREE for the Community in 2022
They’re virtual. They’re global. They’re free.
370x370-person-placeholder.png
Emily Blades
read more
  • Register to Learn
  • Courses
  • Certifications
  • Degree Programs
  • Cyber Ranges
  • Job Tools
  • Security Policy Project
  • Posters & Cheat Sheets
  • White Papers
  • Focus Areas
  • Cyber Defense
  • Cloud Security
  • Cybersecurity Leadership
  • Digital Forensics
  • Industrial Control Systems
  • Offensive Operations
Subscribe to SANS Newsletters
Receive curated news, vulnerabilities, & security awareness tips
United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Spain
Belgium
Denmark
Norway
Netherlands
Australia
India
Japan
Singapore
Afghanistan
Aland Islands
Albania
Algeria
American Samoa
Andorra
Angola
Anguilla
Antarctica
Antigua and Barbuda
Argentina
Armenia
Aruba
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belize
Benin
Bermuda
Bhutan
Bolivia
Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba
Bosnia And Herzegovina
Botswana
Bouvet Island
Brazil
British Indian Ocean Territory
Brunei Darussalam
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cambodia
Cameroon
Cape Verde
Cayman Islands
Central African Republic
Chad
Chile
China
Christmas Island
Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Colombia
Comoros
Cook Islands
Costa Rica
Croatia (Local Name: Hrvatska)
Curacao
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Djibouti
Dominica
Dominican Republic
East Timor
East Timor
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
Faroe Islands
Fiji
Finland
France
French Guiana
French Polynesia
French Southern Territories
Gabon
Gambia
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
Gibraltar
Greece
Greenland
Grenada
Guadeloupe
Guam
Guatemala
Guernsey
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Guyana
Haiti
Heard And McDonald Islands
Honduras
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Iraq
Ireland
Isle of Man
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Jersey
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kiribati
Korea, Republic Of
Kosovo
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Lao People's Democratic Republic
Latvia
Lebanon
Lesotho
Liberia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macau
Macedonia
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Mali
Malta
Marshall Islands
Martinique
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mayotte
Mexico
Micronesia, Federated States Of
Moldova, Republic Of
Monaco
Mongolia
Montenegro
Montserrat
Morocco
Mozambique
Myanmar
Namibia
Nauru
Nepal
Netherlands Antilles
New Caledonia
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
Niue
Norfolk Island
Northern Mariana Islands
Oman
Pakistan
Palau
Palestine
Panama
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Pitcairn
Poland
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Qatar
Reunion
Romania
Russian Federation
Rwanda
Saint Bartholemy
Saint Kitts And Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Martin
Saint Vincent And The Grenadines
Samoa
San Marino
Sao Tome And Principe
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Serbia
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Sint Maarten
Slovakia
Slovenia
Solomon Islands
South Africa
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
South Sudan
Sri Lanka
St. Helena
St. Pierre And Miquelon
Suriname
Svalbard And Jan Mayen Islands
Swaziland
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Thailand
Togo
Tokelau
Tonga
Trinidad And Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Turks And Caicos Islands
Tuvalu
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United States Minor Outlying Islands
Uruguay
Uzbekistan
Vanuatu
Vatican City
Venezuela
Vietnam
Virgin Islands (British)
Virgin Islands (U.S.)
Wallis And Futuna Islands
Western Sahara
Yemen
Yugoslavia
Zambia
Zimbabwe

By providing this information, you agree to the processing of your personal data by SANS as described in our Privacy Policy.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
  • © 2023 SANS™ Institute
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • Careers
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn