Any cybersecurity incident ultimately impacts IT operations and infrastructure. It often begins with a user wondering, “Now what?” and submitting a service ticket through their IT service management (ITSM) system. This triggers an ongoing workflow between security operations (SecOps) and IT operations (ITOps). Integrating threat intelligence with ITSM is a logical, yet often overlooked, approach that deserves more attention.

Integrating threat intelligence (TI) into ITSM processes is no longer optional — it's essential. Traditionally, ITSM focuses on managing IT services, ensuring uptime, and addressing technical issues. But with the surge of cyber threats, ITSM must align with cybersecurity objectives. Threat intelligence feeds, when properly enriched and integrated, can bridge this gap by enabling IT teams to prioritize service requests and incidents, streamline workflows, and respond to threats more effectively.

The Intersection of Threat Intelligence and ITSM

ITSM provides a structured framework for managing IT services, using methodologies such as the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) to systematically oversee incident management, problem resolution, change management, and more. While ITSM enhances operational efficiency, it often lacks the context to address cybersecurity threats effectively.

TI provides actionable insights into the current threat landscape by offering information about indicators of compromise (IoCs), threat actor tactics, and vulnerabilities. By feeding contextualized intelligence into ITSM workflows, organizations can:

• Prioritize critical incidents: TI helps filter, classify and prioritize IT incidents based on their potential impact and threat severity. ‍
• Align workflows with threat context: With a heads-up from the TI team, IT teams can adapt workflows to address high-risk scenarios, ensuring that support and remediation resources are focused where they are most needed. ‍
• Enhance proactive measures: Enriched threat intel data enables IT teams to anticipate threats and mitigate risks before incidents escalate. TI is effectively providing an early warning system to IT.

Integrating Anomali Threat Intelligence with ITSM

Anomali ThreatStream is a leading threat intelligence platform (TIP) that integrates seamlessly with ITSM tools like ServiceNow, Jira, BMC Helix, and other ticketing systems. ThreatStream aggregates, enriches, and delivers threat intelligence directly to ITSM workflows, empowering IT teams with actionable insights. Key features include:

• Automated threat ingestion: Anomali ThreatStream ingests threat data from the broadest range of sources available, including open-source feeds, commercial provider feeds, premium feeds, and internal telemetry. ‍
• Contextual enrichment: Anomali’s threat intelligence is enriched with details, such as geolocation, adversary profiles, attack patterns, and vulnerability data. It also maps to MITRE ATT&CK® frameworks and follows STIX/TAXII protocols. ‍
• Seamless integration: The Anomali platform integrates with a broad range of ITSM tools to streamline and facilitate ticket creation, prioritization, and resolution. ‍
• Proactive defense: By correlating ITSM incidents with threat intelligence, Anomali enables IT organizations to proactively defend against threats as they emerge, not after the fact.

Real-World Use Cases

The integration of Threat Intelligence into ITSM processes represents a game-changing shift in how organizations manage IT services and respond to cyber threats. By prioritizing critical incidents, aligning workflows with threat landscapes, and enabling proactive defense, TI significantly enhances ITSM’s effectiveness.

Financial Sector: Prioritizing Phishing Incidents

Challenge: A global financial institution faced a daily flood of phishing emails targeting customers and employees. While their ITSM system detected the incidents, it couldn’t prioritize them effectively due to missing context. This led to slow responses and higher exposure risks.

Solution with Anomali ThreatStream:

• The ThreatStream platform ingested threat intelligence (correlated from multiple sources) about a new phishing campaign targeting financial institutions.
• Using enriched (contextualized) TI, the ITSM system automatically flagged incidents involving the specific phishing domain as critical.
• IT teams automatically prioritized these incidents, updated email security filters, and alerted employees and customers through automated workflows.

Impact:

• Cut phishing response time by 90%, reducing the risk of further threats spreading.
• Protected customer accounts from takeovers, preserving trust that takes years to build but can be lost in seconds.
• Improved employee awareness with timely alerts — because they’re the first line of defense.

Healthcare Sector: Mitigating Ransomware Threats

Challenge: A regional healthcare provider’s ITSM team was overwhelmed by ransomware alerts, struggling to manage the high volume without enough context to identify real threats.

Solution with Anomali ThreatStream:

• ThreatStream integrated with the healthcare provider’s ITSM system to ingest enhanced threat intelligence, which correlated and prioritized IoCs related to ransomware campaigns.
• The ITSM platform enriched tickets with TI details about ransomware variants, known vulnerabilities, and remediation steps.
• Automated workflows prioritized high-risk systems, such as those storing patient data, for monitoring and patching.

Impact:

• Reduced false positives by 80%, cutting alert fatigue and focusing the IT team on real threats.
• Safeguarded patient data from encryption and theft —  a top priority in the highly regulated healthcare industry.
• Improved HIPAA compliance, avoiding costly fines and reputational damage.

State Government: Safeguarding Critical Infrastructure

Challenge: A state government IT department responsible for critical infrastructure faced targeted cyberattacks. Their ITSM tool struggled to distinguish routine issues from advanced threats, making it harder to respond effectively.

Solution with Anomali ThreatStream:

• ThreatStream provided real-time intelligence about advanced persistent threats (APTs) targeting government entities and specific agencies and services within government entities.
• Enriched and contextualized threat intelligence enabled the state’s ITSM system to immediately categorize incidents to specific agencies involving APT-related IoCs as high priority.
• The IT team used automated workflows to isolate affected systems, investigate incidents, and coordinate responses across other potentially affected state agencies. In this instance, the response was so fast the attack was neutralized before it ever got off the ground.  

Impact:

• Gained deeper, context-rich visibility into specific, high-priority threats.
• Minimized downtime for critical public services—essential for state and local governments that people rely on daily.
• Strengthened collaboration with federal and state cybersecurity agencies, leveraging ISACs to enhance collective defense efforts.

Next Steps

Cyber threats won’t wait — your ITSM processes shouldn’t either. It's time to integrate threat intelligence into your IT workflows:

• Assess your ITSM tools: Ensure your platform can seamlessly integrate with threat intelligence solutions. ‍
• Unlock the power of Anomali ThreatStream: Leverage its advanced capabilities to enhance your ITSM processes. ‍
• Foster collaboration: Bring IT and security teams together to get the most out of integrated workflows.

Schedule a demo of Anomali ThreatStream today to explore how to strengthen your ITSM processes with actionable threat intelligence.

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