Traditional approaches to cybersecurity — antiviruses, firewalls, IDS — no longer cope with modern threats. Today, the one who is truly protected is the one who not only reacts to attacks, but proactively searches for them, examines the traces and understands the motivation of the enemy. This is where Threat Hunting, Digital Forensics, and Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) play a key role.

Threat Hunting is the process of actively searching for hidden threats in the infrastructure before they are detected by traditional means. Research by the SANS Institute shows that organizations with established Threat Hunting practices detect incidents 2-3 times faster and reduce the attacker's dwell time.

What Threat Hunting Includes:

• Building hypotheses based on TTP intruders (MITRE ATT&CK tactics and Techniques);
• Using behavioral analysis and logs (SIEM, EDR, Sysmon);
• Correlation of events at the user, host, and network levels;
• Development of YARA/Sigma/Falco rules for anomaly detection.

 Example: hunting for lateral movement through psexec, WMI, RDP, or detecting persistence techniques through schtasks, registry run keys, startup folders.

Digital forensics is the study of systems, logs, memory, and network traffic to reconstruct the course of an attack, collect evidence, and analyze damage. This is important not only for investigation, but also for legal responsibility and the development of preventive measures.

Key aspects of forensics:

• Windows/Linux artifact analysis (prefetch, registry, shellbags, journal);
• Working with memory dumps (Volatility, Rekall);
• Restoring deleted data, timelines, and action chains;
• Creating reports and maintaining the evidence base.

It is used in incidents such as: cryptographers, internal threats, data leaks, malicious attachments.

CTI is the collection, analysis, and operational application of information about current threats, their sources, motivations, and tools.

According to Gartner, organizations using CTI are 35% faster at closing critical vulnerabilities and 50% more effective at responding to incidents.

Threat Intelligence Forms:

• Tactical — IOC, domains, IP, hashes related to the attack.
• Operational — TTP of intruders, MITRE technicians.
• Strategic — targets of attacks, motivation of groups, and the geopolitical context.

Good CTI practices include integration with SIEM/SOAR, Feeds subscriptions, internal analytics, and exchange via STIX/TAXII standards.

1. Create a SOC division with the hunting & response function.
2. Integrate MITRE ATT&CK into the analysis and audit processes.
3. Conduct regular threat hunting on logs, EDR, and network traffic.
4. Train the forensics team to work with Volatility, Redline, and KAPE.
5. Integrate Threat Intelligence feeds (MISP, OTX, VirusTotal) into SIEM.
6. Evaluate maturity using the Threat Detection Maturity Model (TDM).

It's not enough to defend yourself today — you need to understand who is attacking, how they are attacking, and where there are already traces of their presence. Threat Hunting, Forensics, and Intelligence allow you not just to react, but to anticipate, strengthen protection where it really matters, and act proactively.

With the growth of targeted attacks, APT groups, and internal threats, these practices are becoming the cornerstone of digital security.

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