Top Threat Hunting Techniques Explained

Threat hunting helps you detect threats before they detect you. By taking a proactive approach, you can identify and mitigate risks that traditional security measures might miss. 

With cybercrime damages expected to hit $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, organizations can no longer afford to rely solely on reactive security measures. The 2024 SANS Threat Hunting Survey found that 63% of organizations observed measurable improvements in their security posture due to threat hunting efforts, particularly in reducing attack surface exposure and increasing the accuracy of threat detection. Additionally, 49% of organizations reported significant enhancements in their ability to detect and respond to threats, emphasizing the critical role of threat hunting in modern cybersecurity strategies.

This article covers the threat hunting techniques and tools you need to boost your security and stay one step ahead of the bad guys.

Key Takeaways

• Threat hunting is a proactive way to find the threats traditional security will miss, reducing the attackers' dwell time.

• Using multiple sources of intelligence, both internal and external, helps threat hunters to predict the threats and detect them.

• Security teams using advanced threat hunting frameworks and methodologies with automation and integration into incident response are key to detection and response in modern security.

About Cyber Threat Hunting

Cyber threat hunting is the proactive threat hunting service for cyber threats in your network. Unlike traditional security that waits for alerts, threat hunting actively seeks indicators of compromise and malicious activity. Modern cybersecurity is too complex for systems to handle alone. A threat hunter is a big part of this.

Retaining and operationalizing security data for long-term and effective threat hunting and analysis is key. Access to historical security data gives visibility, context, and accuracy in threat investigation, so security teams can detect hidden threats and prioritize vulnerabilities. Building a security data lake to manage large amounts of security data gives better insights and proactive detection.

One of the benefits of threat hunting is it can detect advanced persistent threats (APTs) that can evade initial defenses. Threat hunting helps to identify suspicious behavior early by reducing the dwell time of the attackers in the network and minimizing the damage. Good threat hunting can reduce the time to detect and get to mitigation faster and overall better security.

While automated security tools can handle 80% of the threats, the remaining 20% are more complex and damaging. This is where the expertise of cyber threat hunters comes in. These professionals complement automated systems with their ability to analyze complex threat data, differentiate between threats and actual attacks, and detect hidden threats. In short, threat hunting is part of a solid security strategy.

Intelligence Sources for Threat Hunting

Threat hunting relies on multiple sources of intelligence. These can be broadly classified into internal and external intelligence. External intelligence sources provide insights on threats that are not specific to an organization, such as global malware trends and common attack techniques. This is important to understand the bigger threat landscape and predict the threats.

Threat intelligence feeds whether open-source or closed provide data for threat hunters. Monitoring the dark web can give insights into emerging threats, data breaches, and threat actor activity. 

Understanding the behavior of threat actors is key as they develop more virulent malware and cyber security professionals need to be aware of these behaviors to hunt for potential threats before they can cause harm. Human intelligence gathered from private messaging groups and forums can give early warning of attacks and how cybercriminals operate.

Using multiple threat intelligence sources allows organizations to be proactive in their threat hunting and improve detection. Integrating threat intelligence into the threat hunting process is key to developing new detection and uncovering hidden threats.

What are Threat Hunting Techniques?

Threat hunting uses multiple techniques to find potential threats. Data Searching, Cluster Analysis, Event Grouping, and Stack Counting are common techniques. These methods use behavioral analytics to find anomalies and patterns in user behavior to uncover hidden threats.

By using proactive defense and advanced analytics, threat hunters can detect anomalies and mitigate threats early using a threat hunting methodology. Cyber threat hunting is part of identifying hidden risks that standard detection tools miss. 

Effective threat hunting requires the use of these techniques in conjunction with specialized knowledge and threat models to proactively detect and mitigate advanced cybersecurity threats.

Data Searching

Data searching is the base of threat hunting, it involves searching large security data sets to find security threats. Setting clear search criteria is important to avoid irrelevant results. Precise queries can find hidden threats in large datasets faster.

Data searching not only helps in finding threats but also in understanding the context of those threats. This is key in the timely detection and mitigation of security incidents so threat hunters can act fast and decisively.

Cluster Analysis

Cluster analysis involves grouping similar information from large datasets based on specific attributes using machine learning. This is useful in finding anomalies and outliers that may indicate malicious activity. Threat hunters use AI search to process large amounts of data to make their analysis more focused.

Security teams use machine learning to find patterns in large datasets, to detect potential threats. Machine learning helps cluster analysis to find patterns in large datasets, so it's easier to find anomalies that may be a threat. This makes threat hunting more efficient and effective.

Event Grouping

Event grouping is a threat hunting technique to find relationships among multiple artifacts that occur at the same time. This helps in security event analysis to get a better view of the threats and their source.

Threat actors create complex relationships among multiple artifacts so cybersecurity professionals need to understand their behavior to hunt for potential threats before they can cause harm.

Stack Counting

Stack counting involves looking at security data values and flagging outliers for investigation. This technique checks outgoing traffic on specific ports to find potential threats. Filters on similar function endpoints can help threat hunters to find suspicious activity.

Advanced Threat Hunting Methodologies

Advanced threat hunting methodologies combine technology with human expertise to ensure effective threat hunting and respond to active threats. These methodologies are the Hypothesis-Driven Approach, Indicator-Based Approach, Custom Situational Approach, and tactics techniques and procedures. Each approach has its benefits and can be tailored to an organization's environment and threat landscape.

Cyber threat hunting is part of modern security operations to proactively detect and mitigate potential cyber threats before they can cause harm.

Hypothesis-Driven Approach

The hypothesis-driven approach starts with an educated guess of potential cyber-attack tactics. This approach uses frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK to guide the investigation and make informed guesses about the attacker's goal and techniques.

Creating smaller threat scenarios allows threat hunters to create robust and testable hypotheses for targeted threat hunting. Security teams play a big role in creating this robust and testable hypothesis for targeted threat hunting. These hypotheses point to behaviors or events that deviate from the norm, so it's more likely to find anomalies or threats.

Indicator-Based Approach

Indicator based approach detects malicious activity using Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) and Indicators of Attack (IOAs). This Intel-based approach is reactive, analyzing past security data to find security incidents. Threat hunters look for hash values, domain names, and IP addresses to find potential threats.

Using IOCs and IOAs, the indicator-based approach helps to detect malicious behavior and respond to identified threats quickly.

Custom Situational Approach

Custom situational approach customizes threat-hunting methodologies based on situational awareness and industry requirements. This approach takes into account customer requirements, geopolitical issues, and awareness of targeted attacks.

Anomaly detection in custom threat hunting relies on Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) tools. Adapting to the industry and organization's context and requirements makes this threat-hunting approach more effective. Security teams use advanced frameworks and methodologies to proactively detect and mitigate potential threats, improve their investigation, and streamline their operations through automation and structured approach.

Automation in Threat Hunting

Automation is key in modern threat hunting, it speeds up processing and efficiency. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning models can detect hidden threats in real-time and analyze them fast, so threat hunters can stay ahead of the threats. Having access to historical security data enhances these models, so it provides better visibility and context for better threat detection and prioritization.

Automating repetitive tasks in threat hunting allows analysts to focus on more complex investigations, reduce false positives, and focus on real security alerts. Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) systems for example can automate security management tasks and enhance threat identification and response.

Having tools that can help in anomaly detection and threat prioritization makes threat hunting more efficient.

Building a Threat Hunting Program

Building a threat hunting program requires planning and resources. Setting up a security team's threat-hunting team involves choosing the right organizational model based on the size of the organization, budget, and skill sets. 

Human expertise is key as skilled analysts are needed to interpret complex threat data and make decisions. Including cyber threat hunting as a proactive measure is crucial to detect and mitigate potential cyber threats before they can cause harm. 

Effective threat hunting should be a key objective when setting up a security team's threat hunting program, ensuring that human expertise and formalized frameworks are in place to enhance detection capabilities.

Data collection and analysis is a prerequisite before you start a threat hunt. A plan for collecting, centralizing, and processing data supports the threat hunting process so threat hunters have the information they need. Contextual insights that can correlate disparate data points help in data correlation and make it easier to find threats.

Continuous education on the latest threat intelligence is key to integrating threat hunting and incident response. Preventing biases and assumptions requires ongoing knowledge acquisition and commitment to stay up to date with emerging threats.

Tools and Technologies for Threat Hunting

There are many tools and technologies to support threat hunting. Gathering security data sources for analysis is key to testing each hypothesis. Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) tools are commonly used for anomaly detection in custom threat-hunting scenarios.

At Hunt.io, we've developed a Threat Hunting Platform that uses advanced analytics and real-time intelligence to detect sophisticated threats. Our platform integrates seamlessly with your existing security infrastructure via our Threat Hunting API and Threat Intelligence Feeds, providing deep visibility across your network.

This allows you to identify and respond to threats before they cause significant damage, whether dealing with threats like Command and Control (C2) servers, phishing infrastructure, or hunting down malware actors.

The following investigations by our research team highlight the importance of our threat-hunting technologies and how they help security teams stay one step ahead of threat actors: 

• Discovering Malicious Infrastructure: Hunt.io's platform was used to uncover hidden malware servers by conducting advanced search queries and monitoring open directories. This process identified previously unreported IP addresses linked to ongoing malware campaigns, which were then further investigated.

• Hunting PrismX Deployments: our researchers identified active PrismX instances by analyzing network communications and HTTP responses. This method enabled the pinpointing of servers running PrismX, potentially being used for malicious purposes.

• Uncovering SuperShell and Cobalt Strike: Hunt.io threat researchers discovered a compromised open directory containing tools like SuperShell and Cobalt Strike. Through careful analysis, our team exposed the infrastructure and operational tactics of threat actors, demonstrating how these tools are used in real-world cyberattacks.

Threat Hunting with Incident Response

Threat hunting within incident response allows organizations to tailor their defenses to specific adversary tactics. Security teams play a key role in the threat hunting process by using advanced frameworks and methodologies. This integration allows us to detect threats earlier and respond faster and more effectively. Managed Detection and Response (MDR) systems monitor the network 24/7 to detect and combat threats on behalf of the organization.

Managed threat hunting in incident response makes the organization more secure overall. This holistic approach ensures threats are found and addressed quickly, so the chances of a successful attack are reduced.

How Often to Threat Hunt?

The frequency of threat hunting depends on many factors, dedicated teams, part-time hunters, and specific job roles. Finding signs of imminent attacks and removing malware through threat hunting is key to being proactive. Cyber threat hunting is critical to being proactive by identifying hidden risks that standard detection tools miss. Organizations should review their threat hunting cadence and adjust if it's not working.

Threat hunting sessions and ongoing monitoring ensure threats are found and mitigated before they can cause harm. This is key to staying ahead of emerging threats and having a strong security posture.

Threat Hunting Challenges and Solutions

Threat hunting has many challenges, including managing the huge amount of security data and keeping up with emerging threats. Effective communication and collaboration across teams are missing, creating barriers to threat hunting. False positives are a huge inefficiency, wasting effort and eroding trust in threat detection systems.

Internal resistance to prioritize cybersecurity and lack of resources for continuous updates and expertise is a big hurdle. Running an in-house threat hunting program is hard because the hunting and cybersecurity skills gap is evolving fast. Siloed technologies that need manual integration make threat hunting even harder.

To overcome these challenges you need to acknowledge and address the problems you encounter during threat hunting. Solutions are to have effective communication, invest in continuous education and updates, and integrate technologies to streamline threat hunting. 

Implementing effective threat hunting practices can help manage the huge amount of security data and keep up with emerging threats. This will help to build a better and more resilient threat hunting program.

FAQ

What is threat hunting?

Threat hunting, also known as cyber threat hunting, is a proactive approach to finding cyber threats in the network by actively looking for indicators of compromise and malicious activities instead of waiting for alerts. This makes the organization more secure by finding threats before they can cause harm.

What are the intelligence sources for threat hunting?

Use external and internal threat intelligence, security data, threat intelligence feeds, dark web, and human intelligence from private groups and forums. These multiple sources will help you to detect more threats.

How often to threat hunt?

Threat hunt regularly and ongoing monitoring is key to detection. The frequency will vary based on your resources and team structure.

What are the common techniques used in threat hunting?

Common techniques used in threat hunting are Data Searching, Cluster Analysis, Event Grouping, and Stack Counting which can identify anomalies in user behavior by analyzing security data and finding hidden threats. Using these will make you more secure.

How automation can help?

Automate to speed up data analysis and reduce false positives by using security data so analysts can focus on deeper investigations.

Wrapping up

In short, threat hunting is an essential part of modern cybersecurity. By understanding the basics, leveraging multiple intelligence sources, employing both common and advanced techniques, and integrating automation, you can stay ahead of evolving threats. 

Ready to take your threat hunting to the next level? Book a demo with us today and see how our advanced threat hunting platform can enhance the security of your organization.