Types of Threat Hunting

Threat hunting is essential to the network, endpoint, and data security measures because cyber criminals are becoming more intelligent. Threat hunting is necessary because automated cybersecurity can be evaded by sophisticated threats. It is essential to find and defend the systems from cyberattacks, provided the increasing frequency of cases. Traditional security solutions are stopped by proactive and iterative network scanning to identify and isolate sophisticated threats. Whereas common threat management techniques like firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS), and SIEM systems frequently involve evaluating factual data following notification of a potential threat.

What is Threat Hunting?

Threat hunting is a technique for actively looking for malicious network threats that may be present in a network. Finding deceptive, malicious individuals who have managed to get past an organization's defenses requires deeper investigation than other investigative techniques. It is typically carried out after the phase of cyber threat detection, during which an automated approach is used to search for known threats. Attackers can quietly gather information, retrieve sensitive information, and get login credentials once they have breached the network perimeter and are free to move about the environment. For months, criminals may work secretly on a network.

Types of Threat Hunting

Structured Hunting:

• Foundations
Structured hunting is based on Indicators of Attack (IoA) and the attacker's Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs). By leveraging the MITRE ATT&CK framework, including both PRE-ATT&CK and enterprise frameworks, hunters can identify and mitigate threats proactively, often spotting threat actors before they can cause harm.

• Incorporating Situational or Entity-Driven Hunting
Structured hunting also includes situational or entity-driven approaches, which focus on high-risk/high-value entities like sensitive data or critical computing resources. This approach improves the effectiveness of threat-hunting activities by prioritizing efforts on high-value targets, such as domain controllers and privileged individuals. Utilizing tools like Open Threat Exchange (OTX), YARA, and Zeek, hunters can identify and mitigate potential threats more efficiently.

Unstructured Hunting:
Before and following the trigger or IoC, the hunter scans the system for malicious patterns. Threat hunters can examine historical data as far as data retention restrictions allow. Threats that have previously infiltrated the environment but are now inactive can be found using this method of Threat hunting.

• Situational or Entity-Driven Hunting:
Situational or entity-driven Threat hunting focuses on high-risk/high-value entities, such as sensitive data or crucial computing resources. Its main advantage is that it aids in improving the effectiveness of threat-hunting activity by helping to focus and prioritize it. Attackers often target specific high-value or high-risk assets, such as domain controllers, privileged individuals like IT executives, and development executives. Focused Threat hunting and search operations are employed to identify these high-value targets. Leveraging Threat hunting tools such as Open Threat Exchange (OTX), YARA, and Zeek aids in identifying and mitigating potential threats.

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