Becoming a hunter, not the hunted.... (Week 7)

 

Threat Hunting is an interesting concept… and it means exactly what it says. Hunting down threats before they find you, in a sense. While there still may be signs that a threat is there, it’s the act of finding and catching it before you know it’s a confirmed problem.

In short, it works by coming up with a hypothesis, whether it’s based on something that seems off, or a potential gut feeling. The goal is to prove whether or not the hypothesis is correct or failed. Depending on what you’re looking for specifically it may involve looking through various data, like logs, network, activity, protocol analyzers, or comparing past activity to present activity. If the hypothesis doesn’t stand up, nothing happens. On the other hand, if it does, you move to incident response in order to fix, mitigate or manage the issue.

While the process sounds simple when you put it into words, but in a real-life scenario it can be a little more complicated than it seems, and sometimes it may not get you anywhere, despite the amount if time that went into it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Allow me to introduce myself....(week 1)

Hello from the void, A new college term is upon us, and the calendar year is almost over! Before I go any further, allow me to introduce myself: you can call me K, and as you can guess, I am a college student that is working on a bachelor’s in information technology. After 3.5 long years I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I got my love for technology when I used my first computer around the age of 5, alongside watching my dad rebuilding them as a hobby. Ever since I’ve been dabbling in the tech side, and self-taught myself HTML coding at the age of 12. While I haven’t done much with it after the myspace era ended, it can’t be that hard to pick it back up.   With that out of the way, I look forward to updating my blog and sharing the things I’ll be learning throughout the term -K
Read more

Hidden in the middle.... (Week 3)

Going to your local coffee shop can be a great place to not only enjoy a cup of coffee, but you can also get access to free public Wi-Fi. While that seems appealing and cost effective, it might be worth thinking about the security risks beforehand. When using public Wi-Fi, and not taking proper precautions, it’s possible for someone to intercept the information you are sending or receiving. This is referred to as eavesdropping or a Man in the Middle attack. This is a great way for threat actors to gain access to private information, whether passwords, emails, or even banking info. Essentially a person trying to gain access will digitally put themselves on the same path as you in order to get access, or this can happen by connecting to a ‘fake’ public Wi-Fi connection. While using this analogy is a great way to explain the how and the implications, it's worthy to note that this isn't just a 'free public wi-fi' type of attack, it can also happen on other unsecure connecti...
Read more

Staying ahead of the game (Week 2)

  As a person that uses technology and the internet on a daily basis, it’s mind blowing how vulnerable you and your data are. On a personal level or even as a business or organization, the vulnerabilities can have a big impact. With businesses, specifically those that handle secure data or private information, ensuring that you have some sort of protocol in place can help aid in better security. Vulnerabilities scanners can be useful when trying to help catch those pesky weaknesses within your system. In other words, they help you to stay ahead of the game. A plus is that some of them have the ability to check for a variety of things, such as missed patches, weak passwords, misconfigurations, and even outdated software. Not only that, it can help in the realm of maintaining overall compliance; especially if you’re working with sensitive information. This may be something people ‘may’ think they can skip over. In best practice it can actually be beneficial by prioritizing risks,...
Read more