Cyber threat intelligence: Industry solutions begin to lean on AI and ML advances

Threat intelligence is an important resource for armed forces in combating cyber threats from a defensive and offensive perspective. Industry is pursuing a range of technological evolutions to bolster the capability, aiming to predict attacks and develop a better understanding of the cyber capabilities and vulnerabilities of individual technology types.

Cyber threat intelligence is particularly complex, with elements tied to predicting and preventing attacks.

Threat intelligence is naturally associated with understanding threats and what might motivate an adversary to launch an attack of one kind or another. This may not be technical in nature, but has a technological impact.

On the cyber side, for instance, such intelligence could be used to “operationally predict whether a particular state aggressor might wish to try to do something in cyber space because of something that might be going on at home”, said Ed Gillett, sales director for defence and space at BAE Systems’ Applied Intelligence business line, which works with a range of military customers, most notably the UK Joint Forces Command.

For example, if a particular state is having trouble accessing foreign currency, it may be financially motivated to launch cyber attacks. These could have a military dimension. The aim is to “get defence intelligence to a point where they’re being provided with the information to conduct predictive analysis”, Gillett said.