TRENDING
of threat intelligence has increased
significantly since 2015. Despite the
increase in the exchange and use of threat
intelligence, most respondents from the
survey are not satisfied with the current
quality of the data. Lack of accuracy and
timeliness is among the top complaints
about threat intelligence, which in turn
hinders its effectiveness and security teams’
ability to quickly mitigate threats. In fact,
only 31% of respondents cited threat
intelligence as actionable. But exchanging
threat intelligence among peers, industry
groups, IT vendors and government bodies
can result in more holistic, accurate and
timely threat intelligence and a stronger
security posture.
Two-thirds of respondents (66%) reported
that threat intelligence could have prevented
or minimised the consequence of a data
breach or cyber attack, indicating that more
infosecurity professionals are realising the
importance of threat intelligence.
“Cybersecurity takes a village, and this
survey spotlights a real need for the
cybersecurity community and public sector
to better co-operate and communicate
to share intel on security threats,” said Dr
Larry Ponemon, Chairman and Founder
of the Ponemon Institute. “More accurate
and comprehensive exchange of threat
intelligence will speed our ability to respond
to attacks and will result in stronger
defence against cyber threats, whether
that’s among enterprises or our nation’s
critical infrastructure.”
The vast majority of respondents are focused
on threat sharing, with 84% of organisations
22
INTELLIGENTCIO
“
Ashraf Sheet, Regional Director Middle East
& Africa at Infoblox
fully participating or partially participating in
an initiative or programme for exchanging
threat intelligence with peers and/or industry
groups. But most of these organisations are
only participating in peer-to-peer exchange of
threat intelligence (65%) instead of a more
formal approach such as threat intelligence
exchange services or consortium, which
contributes to the dissatisfaction with the
quality of the threat intelligence obtained.
“There’s a real need for actionable, timely
and effective threat intelligence sharing,”
said Jesper Andersen, CEO of Infoblox.
“As industry players, we have a responsibility
to our customers and consumers to make
sure we’re doing everything to facilitate
comprehensive threat intelligence within
the ecosystem. This means establishing an
exchange platform that enables sharing that
is trusted, neutral and offers a 360-degree
view of market threats.” Other key findings
from the survey include:
MORE
ACCURATE AND
COMPREHENSIVE
EXCHANGE
OF THREAT
INTELLIGENCE
WILL SPEED
OUR ABILITY TO
RESPOND TO
ATTACKS.
• Most respondents believe threat
intelligence improves situational
awareness, with an increase from 54%
of respondents in 2014 to 61% of
respondents in this year’s study
• A total of 66% of respondents say
shared information is not timely and
41% say it is too complicated
• Potential liability and lack of trust in
intelligence providers prevent some
organisations from fully participating
in threat intelligence exchange
programmes, with 58% and 60%
respectively citing these concerns
• While the value of threat intelligence
declines within minutes, only 24% of
respondents say they receive threat
intelligence in real time (9%) or
hourly (15%)
• A total of 73% of respondents say
they use threat indicators and the
most valuable types of information are
indicators of malicious IP addresses and
malicious URLs
“This report is an excellent follow-up to
our recently organised Security and Next
Gen Data Centre roadshow event in Dubai
in terms of helping IT managers, CIOs
and security teams understand how to
make their organisations more secure,
while ensuring high availability in the face
of increasing cyber attacks,” said Ashraf
Sheet, Regional Director Middle East and
Africa at Infoblox. n
www.intelligentcio.com