Cyber Threat Hunting Tools and Services Can Identify Threat Actors and Malware That Have Evaded Your Defenses

There is no silver bullet. Sophisticated threats still evade even the very best cybersecurity defenses. Automated security tools certainly empower SOC analysts to address the vast majority of threats. But many threats remain difficult to identify and investigate, let alone eradicate. This is why threat hunting needs to be a part of every organization's defense-in-depth strategy.

 

Threat Hunters are in Short Supply

Unfortunately, cyber threat hunting at any level requires time, skill, and experience - all of which are in dramatically short supply. Most organizations will not be able to attract - let alone afford or retain - the top tier security talent required to effectively threat hunt.

The Right Threat Hunting Tools Will Force Multiply Any SOC

FDR breaks the time / skill / experience ‘logjam’, making it possible for any SOC or security team to become adept at threat hunting. A purpose-built set of features - designed by experienced threat hunters who have lived on the front line - is the difference maker:

  • Deep File Inspection (DFI) converts streams of raw file data into scored, actionable intel - focusing hunt activity exactly where it is most needed
  • Advanced search enables threat hunters to build complex boolean queries across a variety of fields
  • RetroHunting provides session and file level search, automated retrospective analysis, retrospective data leak discovery and more - enabling even apprentice-level threat hunters to rapidly scour mountains of historical data for the presence of malware, ransomware, exploits and other end user-induced security issues

Historically, all of the above have been difficult, laborious, and time-intensive - only achievable by the most skilled and experienced threat hunters. FDR Threat Hunting provides a set of automated features that precipitously speeds up and simplifies this effort - not only further empowering the best and brightest, but also opening the door for newer, less-experienced SOC personnel to hunt effectively.

Here are three commonly encountered, threat hunting start points - where FDR drives faster and more effective results, saving precious SOC time and minimizing critical asset loss or damage:

  • A structured hunt (initiated by an Indicator of Attack (IoA) or attacker TTP)
  • An unstructured hunt (initiated by an Indicator of Compromise (IoC))
  • A situational hypothesis (initiated by internal risk assessment or vulnerability analysis)

The Advantages of FDR Cyber Threat Hunting

Advanced Search

Advanced searches make session header and file metadata instantly searchable from the FDR GUI, enabling threat hunters to build complex boolean searches across a variety of fields.

Automated Retrospective Analysis

A variety of predefined patterns for sensitive and personally identifiable information (PII) are bundled within FDR. These include SSN, classified document watermarks, financial information, and more. Forethought, however, will never cover all data leakage scenarios. In cases where sensitive information was leaked and defenders want to tie that data back to a related network stream, RetroHunting can help. A user-defined signature with the relevant leaked keywords can be added to FDR. If these keywords are found anywhere in semantic or meta layers, an alert is produced. With FDR, keyword searches can also be performed against images. If keywords are found within an image, e.g. a handwritten SSN, FDR uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to detect and alert on lexicon matches.

Validate Detection Logic

Analysts and threat hunters can further leverage FDR to test the efficacy of a signature on production grade data without overwhelming security staff with false positives. This significantly speeds up and simplifies the development and testing of YARA-compatible rules which combine strings, bytes patterns, and regular expressions via flexible conditional logic.

Implement Detection Logic

New signatures and rules developed as a result of a successful hunt effort can be automatically propagated via the FDR GUI for immediate production use.

Learn About FDR Total Security