Top 10 Cyber Threat Intelligence Tools for 2022

Cyber threat is soaring on the list of the gravest challenges plaguing organizations today. This is partly an outcome of developers including security in their development process as an afterthought. Although enterprises quickly realize the cyber threat risks to their businesses and reputation, they seem to be in a state of indecision.

Although organizations are planning to shift left to improve their security measures, they often don’t know where to start, seeing that the cyber threat landscape is evolving with emerging technologies while malicious actors get more creative. This calls for the widespread adoption of cyber threat intelligence tools.

The movement has already begun with the global cyber threat intelligence market touted to reach a valuation of $981.8 million by 2023 from $392.2 million in 2020, as reported by Statista.

This blog post will take a deeper look at cyber threat intelligence and how it affects an organization’s security posture. We will then go through the top 10 cyber threat intelligence tools of 2022 and the factors that make them stand out in the crowd.

Table of contents:

• What is cyber threat intelligence?
• Types of threat intelligence
• Why are cyber threat intelligence tools essential?
• Key features of cyber threat intelligence tools
• Top 10 cyber threat intelligence tools for 2022
• Play an active role in protecting your infrastructure

What is Cyber Threat Intelligence?

Cyber Threat Intelligence is a cybersecurity concept of gathering, processing, and analyzing data about security risks that severely threaten your organization’s assets. 

Its primary purpose is to discern an attacker’s motives, behaviors, and targets to help you implement a proactive security posture to mitigate data breaches efficiently. It empowers you to identify, prepare, and tackle attacks by providing known malware signatures, data types that ransomware groups like to target, and device/network corruption signs to look out for.

Securing your organization against data breaches and ransomware is impractical without understanding security vulnerabilities, threat indicators, and inventive hacking practices. By drawing insights from this intelligence, developers or security professionals can build a robust security paradigm. You can accurately prioritize vulnerabilities, undertake root cause analysis, and devise other high-level security processes.

Types of Threat Intelligence

Threat intelligence can be depicted in multiple forms and formats depending on the information source, initial requirements and objectives, and the intended audience. The process of simplifying the complicated data processing and analysis is done by classifying the threat intelligence data based on its nature. The four types of threat intelligence most commonly used are:

Strategic: Prepared for non-technical users, it contains a high-level view of potential risks 

Tactical: It features tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) used by attackers

Technical: this data apprises employees of signs to look out for both technical and non-technical users

Operational: It details technical information about possible threats and hostile campaigns (malware hashes, C2 IP addresses, etc.,)

Strategic Threat Intelligence

Largely non-technical and comprising surface-level risks, strategic threat intelligence is prepared for decision-makers and strategists. It is created in a research report format taking data from several freely available sources, such as government-released policy documents, industry or compliance leadership mandates, and recommendations from security agencies.

Although access to such a variety of strategic data for free is helpful, processing the tremendous amount of information and preparing insights is an uphill challenge. You can use threat intelligence tools to scour through volumes of data and retrieve relevant information automatically.

Tactical Threat Intelligence

Tactical threat intelligence notifies you of different kinds of TTP (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) that attackers employ to infect your system. This is intended for technical users like system architects and security professionals, who are actively involved in adhering to security policies. The data includes attack vectors, infrastructure, tools, and best practices to avoid or mitigate these threats.

Data to build tactical threat intelligence is usually pulled from reports published by security solutions providers and industry leaders. This report contains a use case of a specific threat group or attack campaign and details tactical information, from locations and industries targeted to attack vectors used.

Technical Threat Intelligence

Technical threat intelligence deals with technical information regarding an attacker’s tools and infrastructures such as malware hashes, C2 infrastructure IP addresses, registry keys from malware samples, text/content used in phishing emails, and malicious URLs. Technical intelligence of a threat highlights indicators of compromise (IOC).

Although a vast quantity of technical threat data is available for you to analyze and draw insights from, this form of intelligence is of short span. Therefore, it is crucial to distribute this data quickly for real-time actions. You should use a threat intelligence tool to maximize the value of the data.

Operational Threat Intelligence

Operational threat intelligence aims to identify the nature, motive, and timing of specific attacks before they happen. It is a common practice for organizations to track conversations on social media platforms, public and private chat rooms, open and dark web forums, and other such community platforms.

It is impractical or tremendously challenging to infiltrate threat groups and their discussions due to obstacles like legal boundaries, language barriers, and obfuscation practices. While monitoring open channels is fairly doable, you can also track real-world events that lead to cybersecurity issues that can prove to be useful.

Why are Cyber Threat Intelligence Tools Essential?

Time-to-market plays a critical role in defining your success in today’s competitive market. To achieve exceptional development speed, developers often use open-source and third-party codebases in their software. This exposes your applications to several software supply chain vulnerabilities, which are presenting significant challenges across the globe. The US government had an ugly wake-up call to the seriousness of such threats with the SolarWind attack which involved a series of data breaches across global organizations and US federal government institutes. Therefore, the US government has released an Executive Order with cybersecurity mandates.

Data breaches and ransomware attacks are becoming more and more common, with security oversight for developers. This is why you invest in a cyber threat intelligence tool. It automates your security processes by flagging data leaks, security incidents, vulnerability detection and remediation, and third-party dependencies. Making threat intelligence an intrinsic aspect of your developer’s workflow can help raise awareness of the importance of secure coding and the impacts of its absence.

Key Features of Cyber Threat Intelligence Tools

Threat intelligence tools are critical in enhancing your cybersecurity stance by managing risks using AI/ML. Although multiple solutions process data from various sources at scale, provide risk scores, and generate predictive models, you must consider the below features when picking a threat intelligence solution for your organization:

Integrations with other security processes

Ensure the solution integrates your existing security tools and mechanisms, including SIEM (Security Information & Event Management) and firewalls. This ensures you get a comprehensive view of your security posture by collecting data from all the relevant sources.

A central management console for the security team

A single window dashboard facilitates faster decision-making regarding security policies and threats because it simplifies and accelerates the threat identification and remediation process. 

Ability to pull threat data from multiple sources

One key characteristic of a threat intelligence tool is to pull information from many sources, process vast volumes of data, and present a detailed picture of an organization’s cybersecurity standing.

Top 10 Cyber Threat Intelligence Tools for 2022

Let’s look at the top 10 cyber threat intelligence tools of 2022 and understand how they are equipped to secure your system from cyber threats.

1. Cisco Secure Malware Analytics

A unified security solution that protects your organization from cyberattacks leveraging its malware knowledge base. Earlier known as Threat Grid, it is a unified solution that informs you of malware activities, threat levels, and strategies to tackle them.

Key features:

• Provides contextual malware analytics and rapidly evaluates your environment
• Verifies your files against millions of malware artifacts
• Prioritizes attacks based on behavioral indicators
• Integration and automation capabilities through APIs

Pros:

• End-to-end analysis and reporting of the threat landscape
• Easy to integrate without the need to reprogram
• API integration automates sample uploads

Cons:

• On-premise appliance setup is challenging
• Its alert mechanism is plagued with delays

Review:

“Cisco Threat Grid makes it easier and more efficient to investigate and figure out what’s wrong if there were to be a cybersecurity issue.”

2. SpectralOps

A developer-first cybersecurity solution that sits on top of your source code and assets to safeguard against security risks. It relies on AI models and detectors forming a hybrid scanning tool that gives developers the confidence to code without reservations as it takes responsibility for securing your system from high-cost coding mistakes.

Features:

• Enables you to identify and monitor hidden sensitive assets such as codebases and logs
• Comes with more than 2000 AI-led detectors to cover your entire organization
• Scans your complete report in seconds with zero configuration requirement
• Allows you to build your own detectors and automate scanning

Pros:

• Easy integration and solid tracking capabilities
• Robust monitoring and alerting systems
• Scanning speed is one of the best in the market 

Cons:

• Developers must prioritize alerts and identify potential false positives
• Misses some of the UI features presented by other solutions on this list

Review: 

“We’ve solved the issue of having zero visibility into our ADO environment with SpectralOps.”

3. SIRP

A risk-based cybersecurity solution, SIRP’s Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platform gives a unified and single integrated platform for you to make security decisions with complete visibility and a prioritization approach.

Features:

• Makes your system resilient by automating security investigations & responses
• Lets your team pull data from any of your security tools instantly
• Improves operational efficiency through a case management system
• Delivers information gathered from different sources to where it is required

Pros:

• On-demand scalability is seamless
• One-click access to reports & features through widgets
• The excellent support system from the SIRP team

Cons:

• Some customizations need the support team’s intervention
• Lack of playbook or user guide content
• Quite complex to use, especially for beginners

Review:

“SIRP was an eye opener for us. We realized there is much more to the security incidents management than opening tickets and doing follow-ups.”

4. Echosec

A specialist open-source intelligence (OSINT) tool that leverages social media, open community platforms, and the dark web to enhance your enterprise security. It collects publicly available data from 18 social media platforms, blogs, and news portals and contextualizes data critical and relevant to your organization.

Key features:

• Extracts and contextualizes real-world threat data from the dark web
• Enables you to conduct internal threat monitoring & real-time web search 
• Integrates seamlessly with other security solutions
• Comes with pre-built data search filters offering 24/7 monitoring

Pros

• Simple tool to investigate open or public platforms for threats
• Ease of use and hassle-free configuration
• Extremely intuitive GUI

Cons

• Human verification is required due to occasional random results
• The learning curve could be steep for someone new to OSINT tools

Review:

“The Echosec system is the most intuitive and user-friendly OSINT tool I’ve used for Social Media. The results render quickly, and the layout and operability are fantastic.”

5. IntSights External Threat Protection (ETP) Suite

A 360-degree cybersecurity solution that empowers you with real-time, actionable insights. It can either be used as a holistic cyber threat intelligence suite or as separate modules for threat investigation, risk analysis, and external intelligence. 

Features:

• Collects data from deep and dark webs to deliver a solid analytical report
• Automates risk mitigation and also suggests best practice recommendations
• Prioritizes patching of critical vulnerabilities
• Comes with extensible integration capability

Pros:

• Easy-to-use with an intuitive user interface
• Allows integration with enterprise solutions through APIs
• Highly flexible and comprehensive tool

Cons:

• It has a steep learning curve
• Its alerting system could be better

Review:

“It is extremely flexible and can adapt to use cases like phishing protection, brand security, fraud detection, and data leak detection.”

6. Jit.io

As threats are evolving so must the threat intelligence landscape. Jit is not what most security professional would consider a threat intelligence tool. However, in encapsulates a complete cyber security envelope into one solution that is baked right into the code. With Jit, software development companies can find a healthy balance between deployment and security.

Features:

• Open source security solution orchestration
• Code based security policies
• Select a single solution or orchestrate multiple

Pros:

• Easy-to-use and stable solution
• Uses tools most teams are already familiar with
• Single place to manage all security solutions
• Baked into the code

Cons:

• Uses open source solutions
• Is not fully language agnostic
• Does not support every tech stack

Review:

“I love the product! With Jit implementing product security is made super easy for the Dev team.”

7. OX Security

OX Security is another tool focused on protecting the software development lifecycle from threats. One of its key features is providing an automated, modern, and efficient view of dependency graphs.

Features:

• PBOM – Pipeline bill of materials. The PBOM takes SBOM to the next level
• Risk assessment score

Pros:

• Quick to gain value
• Provides a free account
• Dynamic threat monitoring
• Friendly UI, broad threat intelligence data, and single platform view
• Easily integrable and provides reliable intel

Cons:

• Very focused on a specific use case
• Not a mitigation solution

Review:

“OX gives a complete and reliable snapshot of code security before deployment”

8. ThreatConnect

ThreatConnect claims to be the only threat intelligence tool to offer a unified solution featuring cyber risk quantification, intelligence, automation, and analytics. It breaks down complex data into actionable insights that help solidify your defenses against potential risks. Its recommendations are simple and can be understood by the entire team, including security leadership, risk and security operators, and incident response executives. 

Features:

• Automates almost every cybersecurity task with extensible integrations
• Creates a single source of truth to aggregate and optimize threat intelligence
• Has an intuitive dashboard to offer an at-a-glance view of prioritized risks & other data
• Uncovers links between threats, incidents & IOCs using a robust data model 

Pros:

• Simplifies threat detection process through actionable insights
• Combines orchestration & automation for proactive detection
• Provides info on the newest cyber threats and malware

Cons:

• One of the priciest intelligence tools on the market
• Needs work on setting it up to suit your requirements

Review:

“ThreatConnect boasts it can stop any threat by joining your in-house virus software with a collaboration of threat data from others, and it does just that.”

9. ZeroFOX

A cyber intelligence solution that safeguards your organization from fraud, hacking, and other online threats by managing social media and digital risks and bringing relevant data to your attention contextually.

Features:

• Is powered by emerging technologies like AI, MLand OCR
• Reviews and prioritizes every alert using expert analyst services
• Offers intel collected from hidden criminal networks through specialized agents
• Comes with a dashboard with visual indicators for absolute visibility

Pros:

• It’s easy to use and has a vast knowledge base
• The setup process is straightforward with streamlined workflows

Cons:

• Sub-domain alerts can overwhelm your developers
• Generates a high volume of false positives
• Integration capability can be enhanced 

Review:

“The service does a great job of providing alerts about online content across platforms that could pose a problem to the customer.” 

10. Recorded Future

An intelligence tool that automates the collection, analysis, and reporting for you to understand your adversaries, infrastructure, and targets. It enables a proactive stance against cyber threats by giving you real-time visibility into your digital ecosystem.

Features:

• Offers a single platform approach to managing your risk landscape
• Comes with a powerful integration capability, including SIEM and SOAR providers
• Presents threat data with direct source evidence for confident decision-making
• Provides an intelligence graph of all the world’s threats

Pros:

• Covers a wide range of threat intelligence categories
• Seamless UI makes it easy to navigate through the tool
• Has a very short learning curve

Cons:

• The number of search results might seem overwhelming
• Slightly pricier than the average intelligence tool

Review:

“Recorded Future stores the best data and organizes it in a digestible and interesting way.”

Play an active role in protecting your infrastructure 

Cyber threat intelligence tools add significant value to your business growth by identifying, predicting, alerting, and managing cyberattacks. These tools allow your developers to incorporate security best practices as a part of their development process. While the market is rich with several threat intelligence solutions and vendors, it could put you in a dilemma. In this article, we presented our top 10 picks for this year.

To further understand the role developers play in securing the underlying infrastructure of applications, check out our recent guide on serverless security next.