Leveraging Human Intelligence in Cyber Security: A Guide for SOC Teams
Tags: security, cybersecurity, beginners, humans
Published: 2023-01-17 12:59:57

The unforeseen effects of emerging technologies increasing cyber attacks from enterprise assets and elections to health data and physical infrastructure. According to Gartner report, in 2022, global infosec spending is expected to reach $170 billion. Because of which all eyes are on the cyber security industry to innovate better as well as more resilient approaches.

To see, identify and respond to attacks, threat hunters and incident responders rely on intelligence. Universally, various types of intelligence sources are used by them that includes open-source intelligence (OSINT), Machine Intelligence (SIGINT) and Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT). However, the one constant behind all attacks is that they are human-driven. Because of which new form of intelligence is becoming critical for cyber security success is Human Intelligence (HUMINT). Human Intelligence is becoming popular as threat actors keep innovating to make their attacks more difficult to see and stop.

You must be wondering what human intelligence is and how it will help in cyber security? No worries! This blog has an answer to your question.

In this blog, we’ll share best practices for leveraging human intelligence in cyber security, benefits of using it and much more.

Let’s get started!

**What is Cyber Security?**

Cyber security consists of a group of technologies, practices, and procedures with the objective to prevent damage, attacks, as well as unauthorized access to networks, programs, devices, and data. IT security is another name for cyber security.

The role of Human intelligence has many benefits in cyber security as cyber security persistently studies and understands cyber crimes. It plays a key role in enhancing the cyber security technologies that are used by big and small companies in order to fight cyber criminals and help keep the company and customers safeguarded.

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It is necessary to use human intelligence in cyber security due to the proliferation of devices and rapid revolution in cyber attacks. Human intelligence is able to catch up with cyber criminals, automate threat detection and respond with modern technology instead of traditional ones.

**Human Intelligence: The Secret Sauce**

The technology is undoubtedly incredible and its benefits are magnanimous. But the harsh truth is technology alone is not a strong enough solution – just ask any business owner who suffered through a cyber attack. Technology is only half of the recipe.

Still, many people are so connected with technology that they forget that the tech only works because humans taught it how to work. Human intelligence team/SOC team provide a proactive approach that tech can’t rival when it comes to cyber security and threat detection.

To understand the behavior and pattern of the bad actors, threat intelligence teams analyze past attacks, industry and post-mortem reports, and ongoing chatter. All of that information tends to be stored across different sources, making it challenging to piece together. To take all the scattered data and connect the dots to have a whole picture is the work of cyber threat intelligence agents.

The evaluation of the data is the first step done by a human analyst. Irrelevant information is filtered out by human analysts – something can only be done by a skilled person – and initiated to construct a story of how a past attack happened. Analysts will focus on the unknown and deduce the motives and decision-making process of bad actors. Analysts can provide proactive information regarding security by uncovering the how and why of an attack, combined with the collected IOCs (indicators of compromise). To prevent look-a-like attacks or patch identified threats, teams will jump into action and update cyber security tools.

In short, Human Intelligence is the secret sauce in cyber security that will not only prevent the cyber attacks but also predict the future attacks with the help of their analysis to safeguard your business.

**Wrapping Up**

It is a serious business to protect against cyber attacks and it requires multiple resources working together. Cyber security automation solutions do an outstanding work of detecting intrusions that use known patterns and tactics. These tools can trigger a red alert and defend against the same attack over and over. It is critical as well as holds a lot of value.

But, it is required to have a holistic approach to cyber security for proactive elements as well. This can help safeguard your organization before a threat even becomes a reality. That kind of preemptive approach can only be facilitated by Human Intelligence. Cyber attacks are programmed and launched by humans, and it is only another human that can understand the psyche and motivations of the attacker and extrapolate that information to predict (and prevent) future attacks.

Hope this blog helps you understand what Human Intelligence is and why it is important in cyber security. Want to start with Human Intelligence but don’t know how? No worries! Sennovate expert’s are just a call away.

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**About Sennovate**

[Sennovate](https://sennovate.com/) delivers custom identity and access management (IAM) and managed security operations center (SOC) solutions to businesses around the world. With global partners and a library of 2000+ integrations, 10M+ identities managed, we implement world-class cybersecurity solutions that save your company time and money. We offer a seamless experience with integration across all cloud applications, and a single price for product, implementation, and support. Have questions? The consultation is always free. Email [hello@sennovate.com](https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?fs=1&tf=cm&source=mailto&to=hello@sennovate.com) or call us at: +1 (925) 918–6565.