Addressing sophisticated threats requires a holistic approach to cybersecurity. This is where cyber fusion comes into the picture. Cyber fusion allows different security functions such as threat hunting, threat intelligence, vulnerability management, incident response, and others to communicate with each other under one platform. Among the different elements that cyber fusion is composed of, two of the most significant ones are Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) and Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP). Let us understand their role in cyber fusion.
Role of SOAR in Cyber Fusion
As an integral part of cyber fusion, a SOAR platform plays an integral role by allowing security operations center (SOC) teams to respond to reported cybersecurity incidents and proactively identify threats at an early stage. It has in-built automated playbooks for incident investigation, analysis, and response processes. Since the security stack involves several tools that are not designed to interact with each other, the SOAR platform brings them together to orchestrate different security functions. This is the objective of cyber fusion—to integrate different elements of security operations.
At every phase of the incident response cycle, different actions are needed to terminate the threat actors. An advanced SOAR platform streamlines the workflows for SOC teams by equipping them with the right information so they can take appropriate responsive actions across their cybersecurity infrastructure. Driven by cyber fusion, this capability helps disparate security teams to utilize the information and actioning features of the entire stack.
SOAR is an important element of the cyber fusion technology. This technology helps SOC teams connect the dots between different security incidents to gain insights into the hidden patterns and the techniques and tactics employed by threat actors. A SOAR tool not only connects different solutions but also brings disparate security teams on a single platform to provide a holistic approach to threat response. It enhances the collaboration across different teams. By integrating various functions, a SOAR platform gives security teams comprehensive insights into all the operations to prioritize the cybersecurity incidents that entail the highest cost to the company.
Role of a TIP in Cyber Fusion
A TIP is a tool that gathers, processes, enriches, and correlates threat intelligence data from disparate sources and formats. It provides security teams with insights on known malware and other threats, helping them in accurate and efficient threat identification, analysis, and response.
Since cyber fusion integrates diverse security functions, the aggregation of information from different teams and technologies utilized by them also becomes a part of the process. A TIP plays a key role in this by adding information on potential threats by gathering threat data from a wide range of internal and external sources in structured as well as unstructured formats. Furthermore, it can collect information from the existing tools used by security teams, such as antivirus, firewall, EDR, SIEM, IDS/IPS, and more. Beside collecting threat information from multiple sources, a TIP enables SOC teams to leverage this data to sieve out irrelevant information. Cyber fusion enables security analysts to correlate all the relevant information and enrich it, and perform other functions, such as deduplication and automated analysis.
The integration of different security functions through cyber fusion benefits from the sharing of threat intelligence gathered through a TIP. The collected data can be shared with internal teams, external partners, information sharing communities, industry peers, government agencies, and etc. Thus, every team can leverage the type of intelligence they require to act on their security priorities.
Conclusion
The objective of cyber fusion is to bring different security teams under one roof to collaboratively defend against all threats. A cyber fusion solution powered with a SOAR platform forms the backbone of threat response processes and a TIP provides threat information that includes the strategies and actions that need to be taken against sophisticated threats. Thus, these are two important elements of cyber fusion technology.
