Advanced threat hunting addresses targeted attacks by APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) organizations through proactive, hypothesis-driven investigation and real-time analysis of potential threats within an environment. Unlike traditional security measures that rely on known signatures or indicators of compromise (IOCs), threat hunting assumes breaches may already have occurred and actively searches for signs of sophisticated, stealthy attacks.
Here’s how it works:
Hypothesis-Based Hunting: Threat hunters develop hypotheses based on threat intelligence, known APT tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), or anomalies in the environment. For example, if intelligence suggests a specific APT group is targeting financial institutions with spear-phishing and lateral movement via PowerShell, hunters will look for related behaviors in their own network.
Behavioral Analysis and Anomaly Detection: Hunters use tools to monitor user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA), looking for deviations from normal patterns, such as unusual login times, access to sensitive data, or unexpected connections to external IPs. These anomalies may indicate early-stage APT activity.
Threat Intelligence Integration: Advanced threat hunting leverages both internal logs and external threat intelligence feeds to understand the tools, infrastructure, and methods used by known APT groups. This helps in identifying potential matches or TTP overlaps within the environment.
Tooling and Automation: Security teams use advanced tools like Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), and network traffic analysis platforms to collect and analyze data at scale. Automation helps in sifting through large datasets to identify suspicious patterns more efficiently.
Incident Response and Remediation: When a potential APT activity is detected, threat hunters work closely with incident response teams to validate, contain, and remediate the threat. This may involve isolating affected systems, removing malicious artifacts, and strengthening defenses against similar future attacks.
Example: Suppose an APT group is known to use a custom malware strain that communicates with a C2 (Command and Control) server over DNS tunneling. A threat hunter, aware of this Tactic, sets up queries to detect unusual DNS traffic patterns—such as abnormally high DNS response sizes or frequent requests to newly registered domains. Upon detecting such activity, the hunter investigates further, discovers the compromised endpoint, and works with the response team to remove the threat.
In cloud environments, services like Tencent Cloud's Host Security (HSM), Cloud Workload Protection (CWP), and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions provide essential data collection, threat detection, and automated response capabilities. These services help organizations monitor cloud workloads, detect anomalies, and respond to sophisticated threats, including those posed by APT groups. Additionally, Tencent Cloud Threat Intelligence offers up-to-date insights into emerging APT tactics, enhancing the effectiveness of threat hunting activities.