Transform threat hunting with actionable threat intelligence

In today’s cybersecurity landscape, the threat hunter's role is pivotal in identifying and mitigating advanced threats. Threat hunters are tasked with proactively finding and analyzing anomalies, a job that requires more than just technical skills—it demands continuous learning, curiosity, and collaboration. One of the most valuable assets in a threat hunter’s toolkit is threat intelligence, a resource that enriches their efforts by providing data, context, and insights into emerging cyber threats. This is the thirteenth post in our ongoing “The Rise of the Threat Hunter” blog series. To learn more about the series and find previous posts check out our series introduction or read last week’s post “Equipping threat hunters: Advanced analytics and AI part 2.” The role of threat intelligence in threat hunting Threat intelligence is the collection, analysis, and dissemination of information about potential or ongoing cyber threats. It provides threat hunters with critical insights into threat actors, tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), enabling them to make informed decisions on where and how to hunt. Enabling proactive hunting Traditionally, cybersecurity measures have been reactive, focused on responding to detected threats. Threat hunting flips this script by encouraging hunters to actively seek out threats, even before alarms are triggered. Threat intelligence feeds—whether from open-source platforms, paid services, or internal intelligence repositories—empower threat hunters to act on the latest information about adversary behavior. For example, if new malware is spreading through a specific sector, threat hunters equipped with intelligence about its indicators of compromise (IOCs) can search their environment for traces of infection before it becomes a widespread issue. Supporting contextual analysis One of the key challenges in threat hunting is distinguishing between normal activity and malicious behavior. Threat intelligence helps by offering context th