<p>Every business has certain core objectives regardless of size, industry, or geographic location. These include growing revenue by increasing sales, reducing risk by reducing costs, lowering expenses by cutting costs, increasing customer and employee satisfac­tion by improving service, adhering to regulatory requirements by complying with laws and regulations, and so on Until recently, it seemed that focusing on information security was an afterthought. After all, security is an additional cost, and time spent training and tougher authentications mean less time spent on other profitable tasks The areas where it naturally aligns, such as reducing business risks and compliance regulations, aren't as sexy as adding revenue, but they're still important.</p> <p>So why should businesses care about cybersecurity? And beyond that, why should they care about understanding the key components of cybersecurity or security tools? As it turns out, key components such as cyber threat intelligence can strategically guide security practices, align organizational objectives and ensure the success of those objectives.</p> <p>What is threat intelligence? The short answer is that it's curated information intended to inform you and help you make better decisions about how to stop malicious activity from happening to you. You can learn more and read a full explanation <a href="https://www.anomali.com/resources/what-is-threat-intelligence">here</a>.</p> <p>In this blog, we'll highlight a few key areas where threat intelligence can have a positive impact on your business objectives and increase your security posture.</p> <h2>1) Reducing Risk</h2> <p>Adversaries, or anyone with the intention and capability to do harm, are constantly discovering new ways to infiltrate organizations' networks. Cyber threat intelligence provides increased visibility across the threat landscape into existing threats and emerging cyber-attacks. By acquiring this knowledge and applying it to your environment, you can reduce the risk of data loss, prevent or minimize disruption to business operations, and increase your understanding of the threat to help prevent future attacks. </p> <h2>2) Preventing Financial Loss</h2> <p>Not only do security breaches cost your organization in post-incident remediation and restoration, but they can also include fines, investigations, and lawsuits that frequently run in the millions of dollars. Arming your Security Operations Center (SOC) and Incident Response teams with operational threat intelligence helps them make timely, informed decisions to prevent system downtime, thwart the theft of confidential data, protect your intellectual property, and save your organization's reputation and customers.</p> <h2>3) Maximizing Staffing Efficiency</h2> <p>Threat intelligence makes the security team you currently have incredibly more efficient and less prone to burnout from alert fatigue. Manually validating and correlating threat intelligence is time-consuming and resource-intensive. Leveraging Threat Intelligence Solutions, like Anomali ThreatStream, utilize artificial intelligence and security automation to collect and correlate raw data and threat intelligence feeds to operationalize threat intelligence. By integrating threat intelligence into your security infrastructure, you can lower your security response times and cut down on false positives to allow your security team to focus on what matters.</p> <h2>4) Investing Wisely in your Infrastructure</h2> <p>Along with freeing up your staffing for other needs, when you understand the cyber threat landscape, you're able to identify the most relevant threats targeting your business to make faster decisions and ensure your infrastructure is able to address these attack vectors. You can also break down silos to increase communication between your security experts and other stakeholders within your organization to align overall objectives.</p> <h2>5) Lowering Expenses</h2> <p>Building off the previous points, threat intelligence can ultimately lower your expenses and save your business capital. An improved defensive posture informed by threat intelligence helps defend against persistent threats to mitigate your organization's risk, lower your response times, and maximize your security investments. With resources focused on the real threats to your business, you'll be able to increase efficiencies in financial and human resources. </p> <p>In this digital age, investing in threat intelligence is rapidly becoming a necessity. The significant benefits to the success of business operations in both the short term (proper capital allocation, more efficient staffing, regulatory compliance, etc.) and the long-term (reduced risk, financial loss prevention, etc.) make it a worthwhile investment.</p> <p>To learn more about the benefits that threat intelligence can provide to your organization's security and business objectives, check out our <a href="https://www.anomali.com/resources/ebooks/managing-threat-intelligence-playbook">Managing Threat Intelligence Playbook</a>.</p>