Page 206 - Cyber Defense eMagazine September 2025

Building a Proactive Posture

Implementing these pillars starts with culture. Security teams must expand their field of vision from
“inside-out” to “outside-in,” treating open-source intelligence, criminal marketplaces, and third-party
ecosystems as integral components of the attack surface. Practically, that means deploying external
sensors and crawlers that collect data from forums, paste sites, phishing kits, and vulnerability
disclosures in real time; automating enrichment and correlation so stolen credentials, malicious domains,
and threat-actor chatter surface in the same console analysts use for internal alerts; integrating
intelligence into workflows, from instant ticket creation when employee passwords appear for sale to
automated blocking of typosquatted domains at the web proxy; and measuring success by dwell time
outside the perimeter: the sooner stolen data is discovered or an impersonating site is dismantled, the
less time attackers have to weaponize it.

Collaboration is equally important. Local agencies benefit from sharing Indicators of Compromise and
playbooks with neighboring counties; universities gain insight by feeding anonymized data into sector-
wide Information Sharing and Analysis Centers. When an attacker reuses infrastructure across multiple
victims, cross-organizational intelligence lets defenders cut off entire campaigns rather than fight
piecemeal skirmishes.

The Road Ahead

Despite the intense and changing threat landscape, the path to resilience for SLED organizations is
becoming clearer; external cyber defense shifts the advantage back to defenders. Agencies that invest
now in programs that marry dark-web telemetry, phishing takedown, fraud analytics, and third-party risk
monitoring will not simply react faster; they will force adversaries to work harder, spend more, and
accept a shrinking return on each attempted intrusion.

About the Author

Amit Weigman is an experienced Project Specialist and Cyber Security Analyst
with a demonstrated history of working in the military industry. Skilled in
Intelligence Analysis and Cyber Threat and Security Analysis, as well as
Molecular Biology.

LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredvichengrad/

Company page: http://www.checkpoint.com/

Cyber Defense eMagazine – September 2025 Edition 206
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