A threat hunter's job is to proactively seek out potential problems and stop them before they have a chance to harm a company's network.
Here's how businesses can create their own threat hunting programs and why it's important to do so.
As well as establishing vital cybersecurity measures like implementing two-factor authentication, securing mobile devices and changing passwords regularly, companies should utilize threat hunting to fend off attacks.
A threat hunting program enables faster incident response times.
It's also much easier and cheaper to go threat hunting than to clean up after a security breach.
Before they can establish a threat hunting program, business owners must gain a solid understanding of what's typical within their work environment.
Identifying them helps establish why a threat hunting program is necessary and what it should focus on.
The next important step is to define exactly what the program should achieve.
KPIs should tie directly to the main goal of finding and blocking threats, and should help set the cybersecurity team up for success.
Although automation isn't required for threat hunting, many companies - especially those with established, advanced cybersecurity programs - automate part of the process to reduce errors and boost productivity.
The main feature distinguishing threat hunting from reactive cybersecurity is it's proactive, not based on alerts.
Threat hunters look for problems long before the alarm even sounds.
A hypothesis could state that if hackers executed a certain type of malware on the company network, very specific evidence would exist to prove the malware is on the system.
Threat hunters will then use that theory to run iterative hunting campaigns in their search for malware.
Lastly, creating a threat hunting program means thinking in a proactive rather than reactive manner.
It entails always looking for vulnerabilities in the enterprise's network and wondering how best to exploit them.
To sharpen their proactive thinking, threat hunters can use purple teaming for testing.
A good threat hunting program fends off attacks before they even start to protect an organization's time, money and data.
It's a valuable tool in a company's arsenal against threat actors - and it will only become more important as time goes on.
Hackers may be savvy, but threat hunters are always one step ahead. About the Author.
This Cyber News was published on www.cyberdefensemagazine.com. Publication date: Fri, 26 Jan 2024 12:13:15 +0000