Eliza Palmer
Cyber threat hunting is a defense activity that searches for cyber threats that remain undetected in a network. It hunts down the dangerous network invader. Some advanced threats remain hidden in the network, with the help of cyber threat hunting those threats can be identified and diffused at the same time.
Features of Threat Hunting
- Cyberthreat hunters can find out the threat posed by insiders that can be anyone, office employee, or any outsider also.
- It can also hunt down the known attacker who is mentioned in threat intelligence services or whose activities have been matched with the known malicious program.
- It searches for a threat that is hidden in the network for months and prevents it from further attacks.
Process of Threat Hunting
- Assumption: Threat hunters use threat intelligence and their knowledge to build a path to detect malicious activity. They assume as what threats can be there in the environment and how to find and fix them.
- Collecting the data: A plan for collecting and processing the data is required to know about the threat.
- Trigger: Hunter chooses a trigger for further information of a particular system or a network.
- Investigation: Hunters search deep into the malicious activities and ultimately confirm them as malicious one.
- Response: Data collected from malicious activity can be entered into security technology to resolve the threat. It can remove the threat and restore the deleted files.
In the U.S. the monitoring and managing the cyberspace operations and cybersecurity of military and Internet operations are done by cyber command. It was initiated to create a separate military wing for cyberspace operations and security.
Cons of Threat Hunting
- There are no guidelines for threat hunting and organizations are finding it difficult to define threat hunting programs.
- There is limited staff present for the threat hunters. Many people are assigned this duty but with multiple tasks and hence they cannot focus on hunting.
- No new guidelines and infrastructures are used, they are using the existing ones only.
No system is fully protected and secured so the use of threat hunting came into existence to identify and dissolve the threat. It adds specific value to cybersecurity. It allows the security team to look into the cyber environment to detect threats that has been there in the system for months. The hunting team should be experienced and determined to resolve the malicious activities and to achieve a proper hunt. Every company should adopt threat hunting for their safe environment.
