The methods and strategies that criminals use when planning and executing an attack on a company’s network and the data it stores are intricate and complex. That’s because corporations spend millions of dollars on cybersecurity in an attempt to repel and neutralize cybercriminal attacks.
While the science of threat detection and mitigation is dynamic, there are still specific tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that attackers commonly employ. Understanding what they are can help you to mount an effective defense against them.
TTPs Explained
As the name implies, there are three components to be found in the TTP category:
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- Tactics. These are the general, beginning-to-end strategies that threat actors use to access valuable systems and information. In other words, this is the “how” of cyberattacks. Hackers might choose to tap into confidential information or intrude into a website to accomplish their aims.
- Techniques. These are the non-specific, intermediate methods or tools that a criminal will use to compromise your information. Phishing via email attachments is just one commonly employed example.
- Procedures. These are the detailed descriptions of how the attacker plans to go about achieving their purpose. In other words, how will the general techniques be carried out in detail?
If your cybersecurity team has a good grasp on these three elements, attacks can be hunted down, identified, and neutralized. Knowing a criminal’s tactics can help you detect attacks at their initial stages and assist you in predicting future ones.
Knowing an adversary’s techniques can show you your organization’s vulnerabilities in time to put countermeasures in place. Finally, an analysis of the threat actor’s procedures can give you a glimpse into what the criminal’s ultimate goal may be.
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TTP Cyber Security Methods
Examining TTPs may substantially help your organization’s security staff understand how criminals plan and execute their activities. During a TTP’s life cycle, your cyber team can do the following:
When you detect a possible attack, you may prioritize its risk level and evaluate if it is comparable to previous instances that your intelligence professionals are already aware of. Using this information, your team may determine where to focus your investigative efforts.
You may then identify possible attack routes. With this information, you may determine which of your systems is most likely to be the target of the assault. You can (and should) protect yourself against potential hazards by using monitoring, mitigation, and neutralization measures.
An efficient TTP cyber security plan not only identifies attacks as they happen but also provides a plethora of insights, suggestions, and data that may be used later. These may include the following:
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- The information about who criminals communicate within chat rooms, by email, and via social media. That can provide insights about other potential hackers that you should keep on your radar.
- Stories and hacker forums that contain details about the success or failure of specific infiltration techniques. Such information can be an invaluable tool as you work to review and tweak your TTP threat intelligence security policy.
- Understanding TTPs enables you to assess immediate risk. For instance, information on a forum about a potential zero-day exploitation plan can allow you to enhance your systems and cyber tactics, thereby avoiding disaster.
- Examining log data after an incident occurred can allow you to reverse-engineer a TTP security breach, thereby furnishing you with valuable intelligence that you can use to avoid or mitigate future issues.
TTP Sources
Now that you have gained a better understanding of TTPs, you may be wondering where you and your security team can find them. Identifying TTPs involves an investment of time and resources, but it definitely can be done. Some common places to search for them are the following:
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- Open Source Intelligence (OSINT): This refers to data to be found throughout the Internet using low-cost, sharable platforms. Ideally, it would help if you opted for one to prioritize the massive quantities of data it provides.
- Use your company’s darknets to lure attackers: These are parts of your network that have no traffic and that you are not using. For that very reason, they become attractive to criminals looking for ways to breach your defenses. Implement procedures to monitor these segments of your network for sudden changes that could signal an infiltration in progress.
- Telemetry: That is the collective name for all data and measurements flowing throughout your network into a receiving device. It usually consists of scanning results, uploads, downloads, traffic flow, and more. Verifiable and easy to interpret by skilled security personnel, this data can help with immediate incident detection.
- Scanning for threats and crawling around the Internet: Catalog information that can be analyzed and categorized. This low-cost, information-rich strategy is a slow but effective and proactive threat intelligence tool.
- Malware analysis and processing: Usually conducted by large security organizations, this involves testing out the most recent iterations of malicious code programs. By utilizing this procedure, anti-virus software and other security developers can react quickly to the newest iterations in cybercrime.
- Human intelligence or closed source relations: This method involves undercover “spying” techniques that security operatives use to access closed forums, servers, and communities.
In today’s era of sophisticated technology and lucrative data, that can easily lead to hauls in the six figures for computer hackers. At TrustNet, we believe that it is vital that companies of all sizes constantly perform a complex set of automated and human-driven actions to protect their resources. Mounting a cyber security defense that considers TTPs can help your company gain the upper hand against various threats.
TrustNet’s Penetration Testing Services
Penetration testing verifies the security of information technology infrastructures and assesses whether vulnerabilities are adequately managed. As part of a pen test, an evaluation will aim to determine how one can successfully break into your information assets and whether or not one would be able to do so.
Imagine being one step ahead of cyber threats with a trusted partner. That’s exactly what penetration testing offers. It’s like having a security expert examine your digital defenses to spot any weaknesses before someone else does.
TrustNet has been the trusted partner of different businesses for enhancing/moderating their security requirements for more than a decade. Through our tried and tested strategies (which we have refined over time) we not only identify hidden flaws; we also assist in fortifying your systems in simple yet impactful ways.
