What is Malicious Traffic Detection?
A cornerstone of any security operation: detecting malicious traffic is the process of identifying and analyzing activity within a computer network that intends to compromise its security. Encountering malicious activity is a certainty for every organization. Left unchecked it can result in data theft, the distribution of malware, and the creation of botnets which deal acute damage to your businesses operations and stakeholder trust. But as data flows increase and threat actors continuously adapt their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to launch new attacks against their victims; organizations must have the means to quickly detect both known and novel indicators of malicious activity if they want an effective cyber security posture.
How Can You Detect Malicious Traffic?
Malicious traffic has tell-tale patterns or unusual behavior. Identifying these indicators of compromise (IOC) within your network can alert you to threats. Organizations use various methods in tandem to pinpoint known and novel indicators in order to keep them safe from both established and emerging threats. Examples of commonly used methods include:
Network Detection and Response (NDR)
NDR continuously monitors network traffic for IOC and suspicious behavior. It uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to model the TTPs of threat actors so that fresh attacks can be identified with speed and mitigated effectively. They can also synchronize with other cyber security tools to speed up security investigation.
Endpoint Detection and Response
EDR is an integrated endpoint security solution combining real-time continuous monitoring and collection of endpoint data with rules-based automated response and analysis capabilities. It aims to detect and investigate suspicious activity on hosts and endpoints and employs a high degree of automation to enable security teams to quickly identify and respond to threats.
Security Information and Events Management (SIEM)
SIEM collects logs from multiple sources within your network including endpoints, servers, and services; and analyzes this vast amount of data in real-time to surface abnormalities and takes the appropriate action in response to limit potential risk to the organization.
What Can You Do To Improve Your Malicious Traffic Detection?
Organizations must constantly update their indicators in order to protect their organizations against both known and emerging threats. CTI can provide information regarding known and suspected threat actors so that you can stay up to date with the tactics they use in order to identify and block traffic associated with these malicious entities.
Ensure orchestration to co-ordinate the multiple tools used to identify malicious traffic and automate predefined actions in response, such as isolating a potentially infected device. Orchestration will reduce the time taken to respond to threats and ensure their impact is minimized.
Utilizing AI can help you analyze larger amounts of data for behaviors and patterns indicating threats. The faster you can identify these threats, the easier it is to mitigate against their effects.
How Can Intel 471 Help?
Our analysts engage with threat actors across the globe on the cyber underground to provide groundbreaking insights into the ever-evolving methodologies of your adversaries. By knowing the malicious traffic associated with threat actors relevant to your organization, you can stay one step ahead of them and prevent the infiltration of your network.
We use a combination of focused automation and our analysts’ positioning on the cyber underground to provide valuable insight into malware such as unique indicators, artifacts, and C2 information to improve your organization’s detection and blocking of related malicious traffic.
The Intel 471 team curates near real-time intelligence so you can be alerted to any threat that is pertinent to your organization. Being on the pulse-point of the evolving threat landscape, you can establish a proactive response and stop emerging threats before they can infiltrate your system.
Intel 471 is your window into the cyber underground. Our unparalleled CTI augments your malicious traffic detection to ensure you are prepared to detect and defend against the most relevant threats to your organization.
