Threat hunting should be a key part of your cyber security strategy. This involves proactively searching for problems within your network that may have slipped past your perimeter defenses, as opposed to reactive investigations, which are only launched after an issue has been raised.
However, doing this can be tricky. Threat hunting is a specialized discipline within cyber security, so you'll need both the right skills and the right resources to make this work. So what should businesses know in order to increase their chances of success?
Some of the biggest cyber security breaches occur when hackers are able to slip stealthily onto a firm's network and remain there for weeks or even months evading detection. This enables them to quietly gather and exfiltrate valuable data and move laterally within the system looking for access to more systems.
According to IBM's Cost of a Data Breach report for 2022, the average time to identify and contain a breach in the last 12 months was 277 days. However, the study also noted that firms that took less than 200 days to contain an incident saw savings of more than 26% compared with those over 200 days. In today's environment, that equates to savings of over $1.1 million.
Therefore, the ability to proactively seek out threats that would otherwise remain undetected is an invaluable part of any firm's strategy. But how should you go about this?