Page 293 - Cyber Defense eMagazine September 2025

(SOC) and loosely connected to alert triage. This approach fails to account for how modern adversaries
operate: not through easily detectable artifacts, but through social engineering, identity compromise, and
behavioral manipulation.

Static rules and compliance checklists are no match for such threats. As Levi Gundert, Chief Security
and Intelligence Officer at Recorded Future, explains, "Threat intelligence is essential to modern cyber-
risk management and resilience for two reasons. First, AI-enabled adversaries move at machine speed,
so intelligence must flow automatically into digital-risk, cyber-operations, exposure-management, and
control-validation systems. Second, although compliance often drives security budgets, executives need
an intelligence advantage to invest in the right controls at the right time."

To remain effective, CTI must evolve beyond a reactive feed and become a strategic risk function one
that connects intelligence, operations, and executive leadership. That requires:

• Informing procurement and hiring processes through intelligence-backed vetting
• Enabling identity-aware detection strategies across infrastructure
• Conducting red team exercises and tabletop simulations based on known threat actor playbooks

When CTI is underutilized, organizations are flying blind. But when it is integrated into the business, it
becomes the lens through which complex threats are identified, evaluated, and mitigated before they
cause harm.
Acknowledging this intelligence gap is only the first step. Organizations must now operationalize CTI as
a cross-functional capability that aligns with business priorities, technical controls, and governance
frameworks.

To achieve that, CTI must become a strategic pillar, deeply integrated into the enterprise’s cybersecurity
architecture and decision-making process. This includes:

• Identity-Centric Defense: Embedding CTI into identity and access management systems to flag
high-risk authentications and enrich access logs with threat context
• Security Operations Integration: Feeding CTI into SIEM and SOAR platforms to improve alert
triage, risk-based prioritization, and SOC efficiency
• Proactive Threat Hunting: Using CTI to build behavioral detection aligned with specific adversary
tactics, such as MFA fatigue or suspicious code pushes
• Board-Level Risk Visibility: Translating intelligence into risk narratives that resonate with
executives and board members, answering not just what happened, but what it means

CTI is no longer the domain of threat analysts alone. It is a business-wide capability that informs strategic
planning, drives smarter investment decisions, and enhances organizational resilience. It empowers
CISOs to allocate budgets effectively, enables legal teams to assess third-party exposure, and supports
developers in writing secure code grounded in real-world adversary behavior.

In today’s threat landscape, connecting the dots isn’t optional anymore. Cyber threat intelligence provides
the context, foresight, and speed required to see the full picture before the adversary makes their next
move.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – September 2025 Edition 293
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