What are the specific application scenarios of threat intelligence in advanced threat hunting?

Threat intelligence plays a critical role in advanced threat hunting by providing actionable insights to detect, analyze, and mitigate sophisticated cyber threats. Here are specific application scenarios and examples:

1. Identifying Unknown Threats (Zero-Day or APTs)
   Threat intelligence helps hunters uncover previously unknown attacks by correlating indicators of compromise (IOCs) like malicious IPs, domains, or file hashes with global threat data. For example, if intelligence feeds report a new APT group using a rare malware variant, hunters can proactively search for similar patterns in their environment.
   Example: A company uses threat intelligence to detect a zero-day exploit targeting its VPN gateway, identified through IOCs shared by a threat intelligence provider.

2. Prioritizing Investigations
   Intelligence data helps prioritize hunting efforts by highlighting high-risk threats relevant to the organization (e.g., industry-specific attacks). For instance, if intelligence indicates a wave of ransomware targeting healthcare, hunters can focus on detecting related tactics (e.g., lateral movement or encryption behaviors).
   Example: A financial institution uses threat intelligence to prioritize hunting for phishing campaigns delivering banking trojans.

3. Enriching Detection Rules
   Threat intelligence enhances SIEM/SOAR rules by adding context to alerts. For example, a suspicious IP address flagged by a firewall can be cross-referenced with threat feeds to determine if it’s part of a known botnet.
   Example: A threat intelligence feed confirms an internal server communicating with a malicious domain, leading hunters to investigate potential data exfiltration.

4. Tracking Adversary Tactics (TTPs)
   Intelligence on adversary TTPs (e.g., MITRE ATT&CK techniques) helps hunters map attacks to known frameworks. For example, if intelligence reveals a group using "Living-off-the-Land Binaries" (LOLBins), hunters can search for similar behavior in logs.
   Example: A hunter uses MITRE ATT&CK mappings from threat intelligence to detect a lateral movement technique (e.g., PsExec abuse) in endpoint logs.

5. Incident Response Enhancement
   During an active breach, threat intelligence accelerates response by providing context (e.g., attacker origin, tools used). For example, if an attack is linked to a known ransomware group, responders can block associated C2 servers and apply specific decryption tools.
   Example: A company under attack uses threat intelligence to identify the ransomware variant and its kill chain, enabling faster containment.

Recommended Tencent Cloud Services:

• Tencent Cloud Threat Intelligence (TI): Provides real-time IOCs, TTPs, and vulnerability data to enhance hunting.
• Tencent Cloud Security Center: Integrates threat intelligence with SIEM for automated detection and response.
• Tencent Cloud Host Security: Uses intelligence to detect malware and suspicious behaviors on endpoints.
• Tencent Cloud Cloud Workload Protection (CWP): Leverages threat intelligence to secure cloud servers against advanced attacks.

These services help organizations proactively hunt threats by combining intelligence with automated analysis.