What is Threat Intelligence?
Threat intelligence (often called cyber threat intelligence or CTI) is evidence-based knowledge about existing or emerging cyber threats — what threat actors are behind them, what they are targeting, how they operate, and what their intentions or capabilities are — all collected, processed, analyzed, and disseminated to inform decision-making and proactive defense.
Threat intelligence differs from raw threat data in that it adds context, attribution, trends, risk assessment, and actionable advice rather than simply publishing lists of indicators of compromise (IOCs) or indicators of attack (IOAs). Data is the building blocks, whereas intelligence is the structured story built from that data, which guides decision making.
Types of Threat Intelligence
There are four main types of threat intelligence utilized in cybersecurity, and each operates under different time frames with different depth and use cases.
The four types are:
- Technical threat intelligence
- Tactical threat intelligence
- Operational threat intelligence
- Strategic threat intelligence
Technical threat intelligence includes IOCs, signatures, malware indicators, file hashes, and malicious IPs/domains. It is utilized to inform detection and response technology as well as IR investigations.
Operational threat intelligence includes specific threat actor or malware campaigns, attacker infrastructure, toolsets, and timing. It enables contextual response planning, proactive hunting, campaign tracking.
Tactical threat intelligence includes tactics, techniques, procedures (TTPs) used by adversaries, MITRE ATT&CK mappings, and/ or threat actor playbooks. Tactical threat intelligence helps improve detection logic within solutions and helps analysts recognize known patterns within alerts.
Strategic threat intelligence is the most high-level and is geared less at security and IT personnel and more at executives, organizational boards, risk evaluators, and decision makers. Strategic threat intelligence is focused on big-picture trends, threat actor motives, geopolitical or macro drivers, and long-term risk forecasts. It helps guide resource allocation, cybersecurity strategy, and cyber or business policies.
Imagine an organization sees suspicious login attempts originating from a particular IP address. The raw data would simply be “IP X attempted login.”
With technical threat intelligence, the security team might learn that IP X is associated with a known botnet used in credential stuffing attacks. With operational threat intelligence and tactical threat intelligence, the team might see that this same botnet has recently targeted multiple financial-sector firms using the same login pattern. With strategic threat intelligence, the team might see an emerging trend in credential stuffing attacks after certain geopolitical events, indicating a likely escalation in such campaigns against firms like yours.
Adding this multi-layered insight helps security teams not only block a specific malicious IP, but also anticipate attacker behavior, prioritize defenses, and advise leadership on risk posture. It assists in creating a more holistic, comprehensive security strategy and allows for more precise defense actions at the moment.
How Threat Intelligence Works
Threat intelligence is not a one-off item, but rather a lifecycle through which raw data becomes actionable insight. In practice, many organizations ingest threat intelligence into key security platforms such as endpoint security, SOC tooling, and managed detection and response (MDR) services to amplify detection, response, and proactive defenses.
The Threat Intelligence Lifecycle
- Requirements and planning: Define intelligence goals
- Data collection: Gather raw data from internal logs, sensors, third-party feeds, OSINT, dark web, partner sharing, and other reputable sources
- Processing and normalization: Cleanse, filter, de-duplicate, and map raw data to standard schemas
- Analysis and enrichment: Create and see patterns within the data, assign attribution, infer motives, and evaluate confidence to guide decision making
- Dissemination: Distribute intelligence via reports, dashboards, API feeds, and/or alerts, all tailored to stakeholder needs
- Feedback and refinement: Stakeholders review threat intelligence utility, report gaps, and refine future requirements based on business and cybersecurity goals
Every stage in this lifecycle is done with the intention of accelerating analysis, reducing noise, and enabling more proactive behavior.
Why Threat Intelligence Matters in Cybersecurity
Threat intelligence is vital in cybersecurity, serving as a force multiplier for teams and detection and response technology alike. By converting data into actionable insight, it helps organizations move from reactive to proactive defense.
How Threat Intelligence is Used by Security Analysts
- Alert enrichment and validation: When a SOC receives an alert, threat intelligence helps analysts validate or elevate it (e.g. “this IP has been tied to a known phishing campaign”)
- Prioritization and triage: Intelligence adds risk context so analysts can focus on threats with higher business impact
- Threat hunting: Intelligence about attacker TTPs helps analysts craft hypotheses and search for hidden indicators
- Incident response (IR) and attribution: During investigations, intelligence can reveal attacker origin, motives, infrastructure, and related campaigns
- Hardening defenses: Intelligence feeds can inform proactive blocking (IPs, domains, file hashes) or rule creation
- Strategic decisions: Provides data for budgeting, risk assessment, control investments, and aligning cybersecurity posture with business objectives
In environments that utilize endpoint detection and response (EDR) platforms, security operations centers (SOCs), or managed detection and response (MDR) services, threat intelligence is often embedded or integrated to drive automated or semi-automated response actions and to improve detection efficacy.
Explore threat intelligence’s role in cybersecurity in depth.
Common Threat Intelligence Sources
Threat intelligence is only as good as its origins. A robust threat intelligence program will use diverse, complementary inputs to build confidence and avoid blind spots within their own cybersecurity strategy.
Platforms and Tools
This includes technology such as:
- Threat intelligence platforms (TIPs) which are central systems to aggregate, normalize, correlate, and distribute intelligence
- Security information and event management (SIEM) solutions that ingest intelligence to trigger workflows
- Sharing and collaboration frameworks such as STIX/TAXII, OpenCTI, MISP
Open-Source Intelligence (OISNT)
This includes public threat intelligence sources such as:
- Security blogs, research reports, vendor white papers
- Social media, forums, paste sites
- Dark web or underground forums
- Domain registries and certificate transparency logs
View Arctic Wolf’s own security blogs and threat intelligence research.
Other Threat Intelligence Sources
These include one-off sources such as:
- Closed or premium intelligence feeds, including commercial or vendor-curated IOCs and threat actor profiles
- Industry-specific ISACs / ISAOs, including sector-based sharing (e.g. FS-ISAC for finance)
- Internal telemetry and logs, including network, endpoint, firewall, and DNS logs
- Law enforcement and government sharing initiatives
- Threat researcher and open collaboration communities
Best Practices for Utilizing Threat Intelligence
Using threat intelligence effectively requires more than subscribing to feeds. Organizations should follow best practices to ensure the intelligence is relevant, actionable, and aligned with security priorities.
Best practices include:
- Define clear requirements up front, including what matters most to the organization, and how intelligence will align to the organization’s security posture, risk appetite, and short- and long-term security priorities.
- Diversify success by combining multiple sources of threat intelligence for more comprehensive telemetry and broader visibility into the threat landscape.
- Prioritize quality over quantity to reduce noise and enhance detection and response.
- Integrate threat intelligence into security operations to better inform alert triage, detection logic, automated response, and proactive security actions.
- Continuously evaluate and refine as business goals, security goals, and the threat landscape evolves.
Arctic Wolf Threat Intelligence
Arctic Wolf Threat Intelligence enables organizations to leverage the same intelligence that powers the Arctic Wolf SOC, delivering real-time data on emerging threats. With curated reporting and real-time threat campaign notifications, businesses stay informed and increase prevention without needing to sift through vast amounts of information.
Learn more about Arctic Wolf Threat Intelligence.
Explore the threat landscape in depth, and how Arctic Wolf harnesses threat intelligence to protect organizations with the 2025 Arctic Wolf Threat Report.
