Tracking the Adversary: Cyber Threat Intelligence for Modern Defenders

Description:

In an increasingly complex threat landscape, Tracking the Adversary: Cyber Threat Intelligence for Modern Defenders offers a deep, graduate-level exploration of the strategies and methodologies required to understand, analyze, and operationalize cyber threat intelligence. Designed for aspiring cybersecurity professionals and intelligence analysts, this text systematically unpacks the critical components of CTI necessary for modern cyber defense. Beginning with the foundational domains of strategic, operational, tactical, and technical intelligence, the book guides students through the complete intelligence lifecycle, emphasizing the practical integration of CTI into risk management, incident response, and security operations. Readers gain mastery over essential frameworks like the Cyber Kill Chain, the Diamond Model, and MITRE ATT&CK, developing the skills to map adversary behavior and support attribution efforts against advanced threat actors.

Building on this foundation, the text delves into intelligence collection techniques across open-source, surface, deep, and dark web environments, highlighting ethical considerations and source validation. Students explore adversary profiling, infrastructure analysis, and TTP mapping, learning how to distinguish between commodity threats and advanced persistent threats through structured analytic techniques that mitigate bias and increase analytic rigor.

Each chapter offers in-depth coverage of key intelligence practices: leveraging Threat Intelligence Platforms for enrichment and automation, hunting adversaries through endpoint and network telemetry, integrating CTI into SIEMs, SOAR tools, and EDR platforms, and applying intelligence to drive effective detection and response strategies. Special focus is given to emerging challenges such as cloud, IoT, mobile, and blockchain threat landscapes, as well as the growing influence of artificial intelligence and quantum computing on future threat environments.

Through practical case studies, real-world hunting examples, and actionable frameworks, students will not only learn how to generate and operationalize threat intelligence but also how to shape strategic decision-making, foster intelligence sharing partnerships, and align cybersecurity investments to evolving threat exposures.

Key Features:

• Comprehensive coverage of the CTI lifecycle, collection methods, and analytic frameworks.
• Hands-on techniques for adversary profiling, attribution, and TTP mapping.
• Practical applications of threat intelligence in SOCs, EDRs, SIEMs, and SOAR platforms.
• Real-world case studies illustrating intelligence-driven defense and hunting operations.
• In-depth exploration of emerging threats across cloud, IoT, mobile, and AI environments.

Ideal For:
Graduate students in cybersecurity programs, threat intelligence analysts, threat hunters, SOC personnel, incident responders, and cybersecurity professionals seeking to specialize in CTI operations and strategic cyber defense.

Walsh College Students: This is the required textbook for IT512: INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
TOOLS & TECHNIQUES

ISBN-13 979-8-9987646-2-2

Format: E-Book