What is Threat Intelligence?
Threat intelligence, also called Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) is actionable knowledge about cyber threats: Who the attackers are, what tactics they use, and how to defend against them. It goes beyond raw data by providing context, relevance, and insights that help security teams identify, prevent, and respond to emerging threats.
Threat intelligence is the result of a structured process that collects, analyzes, and distills data from multiple sources, ranging from open web to dark web, to help organizations anticipate cyberattacks, mitigate vulnerabilities, and make faster, better informed decisions.
Gartner defines threat intelligence as “evidence-based knowledge, including context, mechanisms, indicators, implications, and actionable advice, about an existing or emerging menace or hazard to assets that can be used to inform decisions regarding the subject's response to that menace or hazard.”
In short, threat intelligence turns noise into signal. It enables defenders to move from reactive to proactive.
Why is Threat Intelligence Important?
Cyber threats are evolving faster than most organizations can respond. From ransomware attacks to brand impersonation and data leaks, today's threats originate outside the firewall and move quickly across digital channels. Security teams need more than alerts; they need context, insight, and confidence to act.
Threat intelligence empowers organizations to understand who is targeting them, how, and why. By delivering relevant insights about threat actors, tactics, and vulnerabilities, it helps teams prioritize risks, reduce noise, and make faster, more informed decisions.
For example, threat intelligence might reveal that a phishing campaign impersonating your brand is being coordinated in dark web forums. With that context, your security team can block malicious domains, warn customers, and take proactive takedown action before real damage occurs.
Without threat intelligence, security teams are left guessing. With it, they gain the visibility and foresight needed to protect systems, people, and reputation.
What are the Benefits of Threat Intelligence?
Effective threat intelligence does more than surface threats. It helps you understand them, prioritize them, and stop them before they cause damage. When implemented well, it supports every part of the security organization, from SOC analysts to CISOs.
Here are some of the key benefits:
- Faster, smarter response times: Threat intelligence reduces alert fatigue by helping teams focus on verified threats. With clearer context and enriched indicators, analysts can triage and respond more efficiently.
- Proactive risk mitigation: By uncovering attacker infrastructure, emerging malware, and exploitable vulnerabilities, intelligence allows you to close gaps before they are targeted.
- Stronger executive and board reporting: Strategic intelligence supports long-term planning, investment decisions, and security briefings. It gives leaders a clearer view of where risk is building and why it matters.
- Cross-functional alignment: Threat intelligence connects insights across teams. It brings value to security operations, threat hunting, brand protection, fraud prevention, and compliance.
- Industry and peer awareness: Intelligence reports often highlight attack trends by sector, region, or threat actor group. This helps you understand how your threat exposure compares to similar organizations.
3 Levels of Threat Intelligence
Threat intelligence experts often differentiate between three levels of threat intelligence: strategic, operational, tactical. Each level of threat intelligence provides a different perspective that can help organizations anticipate and mitigate against cyber threats.
- Strategic Threat Intelligence deals with high-level information about the cyber threat landscape as it pertains to a given organization. Strategic intelligence aims to identify digital threat actors, understand their motivations for targeting organizations in a particular market sector or industry vertical, and assess the potential risks and implications of a successful attack.
- Operational Threat Intelligence is focused on understanding the tactics, techniques, and procedures used by digital threat actors to penetrate target organizations. Effective operational threat intelligence gives organizations the ability to anticipate how cyber criminals might attack their systems, and which digital infrastructure components are likely to be targeted.
- Tactical Threat Intelligence is the most basic form of threat intelligence. This level of threat intelligence is primarily concerned with identifying Indicators of Compromise (IOCs), such as file names, IP addresses, and domain names, that can be used by SecOps teams to proactively hunt for threats in enterprise networks.
Defend in real time
- Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
- Feeds into SIEMs and firewalls
- Used by SOC analysts, engineers
Disrupt attacker behavior
- Tactics, Techniques, Procedures
- Supports threat hunting and IR
- Used by threat hunters, red teams
Drive security decisions
- Trends, motivations, business risks
- Shapes investment and board strategy
- Used by CISOs, execs, compliance leads
5 Attributes of Effective Threat Intelligence
Threat intelligence is only effective when it can be used by the organization to understand and mitigate against a potential cyber attack. Ineffective threat intelligence comes at a cost, but provides limited or no benefit to the organization.
Effective threat intelligence should have the following attributes:
- Accurate: Threat intelligence must be consistently accurate and correct, such that organizations can confidently act on it without second-guessing its reliability.
- Complete: Complete threat intelligence is thorough and provides the details that organizations need to mitigate the threat. Incomplete threat intelligence limits an organization’s ability to proactively utilize that intelligence for detecting or preventing a cyber attack.
- Relevant: Threat intelligence must be relevant to the organization to be of use. Intelligence pertaining to a digital threat against manufacturing companies would be useless to businesses operating in the financial or health sectors.
- Easy-to-Use: Threat intelligence should be presented in a format that is easy to understand, emphasize the most important information, and recommend a course of action that the organization can take to mitigate the threat.
- Timeliness: The best threat intelligence relates to the most current threats against an organization’s networks and systems. Threat intelligence reporting must occur on a regular basis, and must be put into action quickly enough to positively impact the organization’s security posture.
What is the Threat Intelligence Cycle?
Threat intelligence is more than simply collecting information about cyber threats and digital threat actors. The process of generating and distributing high-quality, actionable threat intelligence is known as the threat intelligence cycle and may be described in six phases:
- Planning and Direction: In the Planning and Direction phase, threat intelligence analysts establish the scope of their intelligence-gathering activities by identifying and prioritizing information assets and business processes that must be protected, and recognizing where new threat intelligence can fill gaps in existing organizational knowledge.
- Data Collection: In the Data Collection phase, threat intelligence analysts gather relevant threat data from a variety of sources across the public and private attack surface. Data sources may include network event logs, external threat intelligence feeds, the deep and dark web, and others. Data collection may yield strategic intelligence (e.g. the identities of digital threat actors), operational intelligence (e.g. TTPs), or tactical intelligence (IOCs).
- Data Processing: Before threat data can be analyzed at scale, it must be cleaned, transformed, and processed. AI-based threat intelligence platforms like ZeroFox help analysts normalize, structure, and deduplicate threat data so it can be analyzed to produce useful insights.
- Data Analysis: In the data analysis phase, a combination of human and AI-based analysis is used to transform threat data and information into actionable threat intelligence. At ZeroFox, we analyze threat data using automated machine learning and AI-driven processes to deliver the most accurate and relevant threat intelligence to our customers.
- Data Production: In the data production phase, threat intelligence is validated, sorted, and arranged into contextually relevant visualizations and dashboards that make it easier for cybersecurity experts to identify what’s important, draw meaningful conclusions, and implement the right procedures for mitigating threats.
- Distribution and Feedback: The final phase in the threat intelligence cycle. Here, analysts compile finished threat intelligence into reports and deliver those reports to the appropriate stakeholders, which often include CSOs, SecOps, and incident response teams. CTI analysts collect feedback on these reports to support continuous improvement of their threat intelligence activities.
Safeguard Your Organization with ZeroFox Global Threat Intelligence
ZeroFox delivers the full spectrum of threat intelligence—strategic, operational, and tactical—powered by AI and backed by one of the largest global analyst teams in the industry.
At the core of our platform is the world’s only historically complete threat data graph. This massive data foundation fuels real-time detection, contextual insights, and precise threat disruption across the open web, deep web, dark web, and social media.
ZeroFox helps your team:
- Track adversary behavior and infrastructure
- Surface relevant IOCs and TTPs across channels
- Understand emerging threats before they reach your perimeter
- Strengthen your overall security posture with finished, analyst-vetted intelligence
With 150+ in-house threat analysts and global coverage, ZeroFox gives you the visibility, clarity, and confidence to act. Whether you're protecting brand assets, digital platforms, or executive leadership, our threat intelligence helps you stay one step ahead.Ready to see how comprehensive threat intelligence will empower your security team? Tour the ZeroFox platform to get started.