What is Cyber Threat Hunting?

Staying Ahead of the Game: The Importance of Cyber Threat Hunting in the Ever-Evolving World of Cybersecurity

Cyber Threat Hunting is an essential practice in the field of cybersecurity that involves the active search for cyber threats in a network to locate and neutralize them before causing significant damage. It's premised on the idea that no matter how robust an organization's defenses are, it's never completely immune to attacks. Therefore, a proactive approach is necessary, where security professionals continuously look for threats that might have bypassed the defense mechanisms.

Traditionally, cybersecurity focused mainly on prevention, emphasizing the setting up of firewalls, IDS/IPS systems, antivirus software, and other defense perimeter tools to ward off attacks. due to the sophistication and constant evolution of cyber threats, this approach has proven ineffective to fully countering attacks. Cyber threat actors continually find ways to bypass the standard security systems, thereby necessitating a more proactive approach: Cyber Threat Hunting.

The primary aim of Cyber Threat Hunting is to proactively, as opposed to reactively, find abnormalities within a network that could denote the presence of a cyber threat. Unlike other defense-oriented practices which are geared towards building walls against anticipated attacks, threat hunting targets those threats which have made their way into the system undetected. This includes bots lying dormant, waiting for instructions from command servers, or ransomware that begins encrypting files in the background.

Threat hunting involves a mix of automated systems and skilled cybersecurity professionals active in threat discovery. These personnel leverage known indicators of compromise (IOC) and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of adversaries, in addition to advanced behavior analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to uncover and apprehend advanced persistent threats (APTs). The hackers constantly fine-tune their attacks to bypass the established cybersecurity protections, hence the need for a human touch in uncovering such adapting entities.

It's worth noting that threat hunting is not synonymous with intrusion detection. The latter is reactive, addressing threats after penetrating the system or network, while threat hunting is proactive and aims to detect threats before they inflict damages. It is assumed in threat hunting that the system may already be infiltrated, making it necessary to hunt and neutralize the threats.

A central part of threat hunting involves creating hypotheses based on existing threats to uncover new threats or vulnerabilities that might be exploited by hackers. Depending on the nature of the threat, tactics employed may range from searching for abnormal patterns in system application logs, seeking unprivileged users attempting to gain enhanced access, to looking for unusual traffic patterns. Each potential threat identified is analyzed in detail and, if deemed an actual threat, it's neutralized, and actions are taken to prevent similar future threats.

Threat hunting also significantly contributes to an organization's risk management strategies as it helps obtain a granular understanding of the threats specific to the organization, the weaknesses in the defenses, and the best ways to address these vulnerabilities and threats. This Intelligence gathers vital information towards bolstering an organization's defense strategies and hence reduces potential risks.

The concept of Cyber Threat Hunting emphasizes a shift from a solely defensive security stance to a more aggressive one that continually pursues threats before causing any substantial harm. This shift in strategy has become a necessity in today's cybersecurity landscape, marked by constantly evolving threats, and will continue to play a vital role in securing our networks, systems, and data.

Cyber Threat Hunting FAQs