Imagine losing your mobile phone or laptop. If your heart dropped just reading that sentence, you know what I mean! In our phones we store photos, phone numbers, messages and emails, but we also store passwords, credit card information and financial information – all of which is very tempting for thieves. When we lose a device, or lose track of a device, it often comes with all the joys of needing to replace a wallet full of credit cards, except that a theft of your mobile information means the attackers have faster access – sadly they’ve probably already upgraded their Fortnite account using your money.
With remote work on the rise, even as the pandemic recedes, 56% of global employers are offering the option of remote work, meaning remote work and the work from home (WFH) movement is here to stay. After considering the consequences of losing one of our personal devices, and all the information stored on it, consider how much additional valuable information the criminal now has access to? He or she can use your saved passwords to log into all your personal platforms (social media or financial) and also use those same password logs to gain access to your work data – a far more valuable target than our limited bank accounts. Long story short, if you have a device, a job and a bank account, you are at risk of cyber-attack. Let’s explore a few cyber threat hunting tools people are using to secure their data and networks.
What is Cyber Threat Hunting?
The threat hunting process is essentially the proactive search for threats lurking within your enterprise network, in an effort to find malicious or suspicious activity, before the attack is even launched. Many confuse cyber threat “detection” with cyber threat hunting. Cyber threat detection is the passive process of sitting back and watching the network for suspicious traffic. Threat hunting goes much deeper into the system and all it’s working parts, to seek out potential dangers and mitigate them.
Why is cyber threat hunting important when we have detection? Consider you hired a bodyguard to come down to the coffee shop and watch your laptop and mobile phone while you worked. You step away for a moment, only to return and find your things gone, and your bodyguard pointing excitedly in the direction of the thief. You’ve just experienced the difference between hunting and detecting. Yes, someone saw who took your things, but no one hunted them down for you.
There are three things analysis must look for when threat hunting. Analytics-driven consideration of user and device behaviour, intelligence-driven threat intelligence reports, feeds, analysis and vulnerability scans, and situational-awareness driven, using risk assessment to determine a company’s network security status.
Automate Detection & Response
Threat hunting tools like endpoint detection & response (EDR), network detection & response (NDR) and extended detection & response (XDR), are developed to help automate the detection and response process, and deliver both elements simultaneously. Let’s explore each in a bit more detail.
- Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) is technology which gathers and analyses info from endpoints to help mitigate cyber threats. Endpoint visibility and faster threat remediation are the biggest pros of this type of automated detection and response tool.
- Network detection & Response (NDR) uses machine learning and AI to seek out suspicious network traffic and quickly respond to any threats other security tools might have missed. NDRs use of non-signature-based detection techniques means that, with the right threat intelligence, the threat hunting process is further simplified.
- XDR, or extended detection and response provides the ability to easily see all data in the networks, clouds, endpoints, and applications, all while detecting and analysing any potential threats, hunting them down, and remediating them automatically.
When you use these threat hunting tools to combine and automate the detection and response to cyber threat, you take the pressure off your IT administrators, the bodyguards of the network, and rely on infallible algorithms and security policies.
Free Threat Hunting Tools
Threat hunting isn’t a pricey service for big companies. Great options include:
- Cuckoo Sandbox - A great free, open-source and automated malware analysis system. Cuckoo is known for the limited analytics it provides on how the attackers files could have potentially breached your system.
- Yara - Another intelligence-driven, multi-tool platform that classifies malware and risk using patterns. Yara is a favourite because it operates on Mac, Linux and Windows, and because it works well with commercial software. There are many free threat hunting tools out there, but if network security and threat hunting isn’t something you want to leave to a free service, it’s time to consider a threat hunting service.
Best Threat Hunting Tools
Sangfor’s Cyber Command is a real-time threat intelligence, detection and response platform designed with the singular purpose of improving and automating enterprise IT security and risk posture. Cyber Command provides global coverage of zero-day and recognizable threats, and automatic detection and response using AI, behaviour analysis and global threat intelligence. If real-time detection and analysis is what your enterprise needs, you’ve come to the right place.
If you aren’t paying for the service, you are the product. You should always be aware that you are a cyber-attackers most valuable resource, no matter how low your bank account goes. Anyone with a bank account and a mobile device could be the key to the next big score for cyber criminals. Look into threat hunting today – because no one will escape the effect of ransomware and cyber threat.
