SANS FOR578: Cyber Threat Intelligence

What You Will Learn
THERE IS NO TEACHER BUT THE ENEMY!


All security practitioners should attend FOR578: Cyber Threat Intelligence to sharpen their analytical skills. This course is unlike any other technical training you have ever experienced. It focuses on structured analysis in order to establish a solid foundation for any security skillset and to amplify existing skills. The course will help practitioners from across the security spectrum:

Develop analysis skills to better comprehend, synthesize, and leverage complex scenarios
Identify and create intelligence requirements through practices such as threat modeling
Understand and develop skills in tactical, operational, and strategic-level threat intelligence
Generate threat intelligence to detect, respond to, and defeat focused and targeted threats
Learn the different sources to collect adversary data and how to exploit and pivot off of those data
Validate information received externally to minimize the costs of bad intelligence
Create Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) in formats such as YARA and STIX/TAXII
Understand and exploit adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures, and leverage frameworks such as the Kill Chain, Diamond Model, and MITRE ATT&CK
Establish structured analytical techniques to be successful in any security role
It is common for security practitioners to call themselves analysts. But how many of us have taken structured analysis training instead of simply attending technical training? Both are important, but very rarely do analysts focus on training on analytical ways of thinking. This course exposes analysts to new mindsets, methodologies, and techniques to complement their existing knowledge and help them establish new best practices for their security teams. Proper analysis skills are key to the complex world that defenders are exposed to on a daily basis.

The analysis of an adversary's intent, opportunity, and capability to do harm is known as cyber threat intelligence. Intelligence is not a data feed, nor is it something that comes from a tool. Intelligence is actionable information that addresses an organization's key knowledge gaps, pain points, or requirements. This collection, classification, and exploitation of knowledge about adversaries gives defenders an upper hand against adversaries and forces defenders to learn and evolve with each subsequent intrusion they face.

Cyber threat intelligence thus represents a force multiplier for organizations looking to establish or update their response and detection programs to deal with increasingly sophisticated threats. Malware is an adversary's tool, but the real threat is the human one, and cyber threat intelligence focuses on countering those flexible and persistent human threats with empowered and trained human defenders.

Knowledge about the adversary is core to all security teams. The red team needs to understand adversaries' methods in order to emulate their tradecraft. The Security Operations Center needs to know how to prioritize intrusions and quickly deal with those that need immediate attention. The incident response team needs actionable information on how to quickly scope and respond to targeted intrusions. The vulnerability management group needs to understand which vulnerabilities matter most for prioritization and the risk that each one presents. The threat hunting team needs to understand adversary behaviors to search out new threats.

In other words, cyber threat intelligence informs all security practices that deal with adversaries. FOR578: Cyber Threat Intelligence will equip you, your security team, and your organization with the level of tactical, operational, and strategic cyber threat intelligence skills and tradecraft required to better understand the evolving threat landscape and accurately and effectively counter those threats.