FOR478: Cyber Threat Intelligence Foundations

Important! Bring your own system configured according to these instructions.

A properly configured system is required to fully participate in this course. If you do not carefully read and follow these instructions, you will not be able to fully participate in hands-on exercises in your course. Therefore, please arrive with a system that meets all of the specified requirements.

Back up your system before class. Better yet, use a system without any sensitive/critical data. SANS is not responsible for your system or data.

Mandatory System Hardware Requirements

• CPU: 64-bit Intel i5/i7 (8th generation or newer), or AMD equivalent. A x64 bit, 2.0+ GHz or newer processor is mandatory for this class.
• CRITICAL: Apple Silicon devices cannot perform the necessary virtualization and therefore cannot in any way be used for this course.
• BIOS settings must be set to enable virtualization technology, such as “Intel-VTx” or “AMD-V” extensions. Be absolutely certain you can access your BIOS if it is password protected, in case changes are necessary.
• 16GB of RAM or more is required.
• 100GB of free storage space or more is required.
• At least one available USB 3.0 Type-A port. A Type-C to Type-A adapter may be necessary for newer laptops. Some endpoint protection software prevents the use of USB devices, so test your system with a USB drive before class.
• Wireless networking (802.11 standard) is required. There is no wired Internet access in the classroom.

Mandatory Host Configuration and Software Requirements

• Your host operating system must be the latest version of Windows 10, Windows 11, or macOS 10.15.x or newer.
• Fully update your host operating system prior to the class to ensure you have the right drivers and patches installed.
• Linux hosts are not supported in the classroom due to their numerous variations. If you choose to use Linux as your host, you are solely responsible for configuring it to work with the course materials and/or VMs.
• Local Administrator Access is required. (Yes, this is absolutely required. Don’t let your IT team tell you otherwise.) If your company will not permit this access for the duration of the course, then you should make arrangements to bring a different laptop.
• You should ensure that antivirus or endpoint protection software is disabled, fully removed, or that you have the administrative privileges to do so. Many of our courses require full administrative access to the operating system and these products can prevent you from accomplishing the labs.
• Any filtering of egress traffic may prevent accomplishing the labs in your course. Firewalls should be disabled or you must have the administrative privileges to disable it.
• Microsoft Office (any version) installed on your host, as several exercises require Microsoft Excel. Note that you can download Office Trial Software online (free for 30 days).
• Download and install VMware Workstation Pro 16.2.X+ or VMware Player 16.2.X+ (for Windows 10 hosts), VMware Workstation Pro 17.0.0+ or VMware Player 17.0.0+ (for Windows 11 hosts), or VMWare Fusion Pro 12.2+ or VMware Fusion Player 11.5+ (for macOS hosts) prior to class beginning. If you do not own a licensed copy of VMware Workstation Pro or VMware Fusion Pro, you can download a free 30-day trial copy from VMware. VMware will send you a time-limited serial number if you register for the trial at their website. Also note that VMware Workstation Player offers fewer features than VMware Workstation Pro. For those with Windows host systems, Workstation Pro is recommended for a more seamless student experience.
• On Windows hosts, VMware products might not coexist with the Hyper-V hypervisor. For the best experience, ensure VMware can boot a virtual machine. This may require disabling Hyper-V. Instructions for disabling Hyper-V, Device Guard, and Credential Guard are contained in the setup documentation that accompanies your course materials.
• Download and install 7-Zip (for Windows Hosts) or Keka (for macOS hosts). These tools are also included in your downloaded course materials.

Your course media is delivered via download. The media files for class can be large. Many are in the 40-50GB range, with some over 100GB. You need to allow plenty of time for the download to complete. Internet connections and speed vary greatly and are dependent on many different factors. Therefore, it is not possible to give an estimate of the length of time it will take to download your materials. Please start your course media downloads as soon as you get the link. You will need your course media immediately on the first day of class. Do not wait until the night before class to start downloading these files.

Your course materials include a “Setup Instructions” document that details important steps you must take before you travel to a live class event or start an online class. It may take 30 minutes or more to complete these instructions.

Your class uses an electronic workbook for its lab instructions. In this new environment, a second monitor and/or a tablet device can be useful for keeping class materials visible while you are working on your course’s labs.

If you have additional questions about the laptop specifications, please contact customer service.

FOR478 is built for a wide range of professionals who want to develop or sharpen their CTI skills:

• Aspirant or current CTI analysts who want to understand industry state of play, how CTI programs are structured, and how to shore up foundational practices, methodologies, or tool use
• Incident Responders who want to understand how CTI can assist their hunt efforts and work better with CTI peers
• SOC Analysts who want to understand how geopolitical dynamics impact cyber threat activities and explore natural career pathways into CTI
• Military, civilian intelligence, and law enforcement agents who require a baseline understanding of working cyber threats in public or private sector roles
• Business, systems, and risk (GRC) analysts who want to expand their job prospects in CTI and understand which skills are transferable
• Data scientists and intelligence engineers who need to understand CTI data, tooling, and which workflow elements can be automated

• A personalized CTI career roadmap built during the course
• A library of production-ready CTI program templates for immediate use after training
• Direct exposure to industry thought leaders through expert panel discussions
• 8 hands-on labs designed to replicate professional CTI research and analysis expectations
• A SIFT VM pre-configured with tools consistent with the FOR578 course environment

FOR478 does not have any prerequisites.

The FOR478 course is part of the Digital Forensics, Malware Analysis, & Threat Intelligence Learning Path, designed to impart the specialized investigative skills you will need to perform forensics, threat intelligence, and malware analysis. This course should be viewed as a pre-requisite for advanced intelligence courses FOR578: Cyber Threat Intelligence and FOR589: Cybercrime Investigations and complementary to SEC497: Practical Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) and SEC587: Advanced Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) Gathering and Analysis.

Other courses that are part of this Focus Area and Learning Path include:

• FOR509: Enterprise Cloud Forensics and Incident Response
• FOR518: Mac & IOS Forensics
• FOR528: Ransomware and Cyber Extortion
• FOR577: LINUX Incident Response and Threat Hunting
• FOR610: Reverse-Engineering Malware: Malware Analysis Tools and Techniques
• FOR710: Reverse-Engineering Malware: Advanced Code Analysis

As cyber operations continue to evolve into a formidable capability used by states, criminal enterprises, and non-state actors, the ability to understand and communicate threat realities has become a critical organizational function. Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) is a customer-centric service function that applies domain expertise in cybersecurity, intelligence, and cyber threat activity and threat actor research to provide decision-support for organizational stakeholders. Rather than simply delivering a data feed, CTI analysts research adversary capabilities, intentions, and activities to produce finished intelligence products that drive better decision-making across security and risk teams.

Those decisions result in mitigating cyber risk, reducing the exposed attack surface, protecting brand reputation, and demonstrating measurable return on investment for cyber security programs.

FOR478 transforms aspirant analysts into qualified practitioners by closing knowledge gaps in CTI operations and historical adversary tradecraft. By understanding the evolution of adversary tradecraft and shifts in their decision calculus, analysts can rapidly contextualize emerging threats, cyber news, and intrusion activities by drawing on historical commonality.

• Students leave FOR478 with a working understanding of CTI program structure, stakeholder management, threat research workflows, and the analytic tradecraft required to succeed in a fast-growing, high-demand field.

• Students learn how to use cybersecurity and external data in tandem to support stakeholders needs, learning how to pivot between various disparate data sources as part of their research - something CTI analysts do on a daily basis.
• Students are exposed to key industry players and their expert insights to include lessons learned that can be immediately integrated into your analytic workflows and career planning.
• Students are provided with the time, space, and guidance to develop a career plan that maps to current CTI industry needs.
• A library of production-ready CTI program templates for immediate use after training to help drive the current state of your CTI program, making you look like a rockstar to your leadership team.