Planning and Direction

The Planning and Direction phase is the foundation of the Cloud Threat Intelligence Lifecycle. It involves defining clear objectives, identifying stakeholders, and establishing the scope and requirements for the organization's threat intelligence program. This phase ensures that the subsequent stages of the lifecycle align with the organization's goals, priorities, and available resources.

1. Defining Intelligence Requirements and Objectives

   • Identify the organization's critical assets, data, and services in the cloud environment

   • Determine the types of threats and risks most relevant to the organization's cloud infrastructure, such as data breaches, insider threats, or compliance violations

   • Establish specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) objectives for the threat intelligence program

   • Align intelligence requirements with the organization's overall security strategy and risk management framework

2. Identifying Stakeholders and Their Needs

   • Identify key stakeholders, including security teams, incident responders, risk managers, compliance officers, and executives

   • Engage with stakeholders to understand their specific intelligence needs, such as tactical, operational, or strategic requirements

   • Determine the most appropriate formats, channels, and frequencies for delivering intelligence to each stakeholder group

   • Establish communication and collaboration mechanisms to ensure effective information sharing and feedback loops

3. Establishing Collection Priorities and Strategies

   • Define the types of data and sources most relevant to the organization's intelligence requirements, such as cloud service provider logs, security tools, threat feeds, or dark web monitoring

   • Prioritize collection efforts based on the criticality and sensitivity of cloud assets, the likelihood and impact of potential threats, and the availability and reliability of data sources

   • Develop collection strategies that balance the need for comprehensive coverage with the available resources and legal and ethical considerations

   • Establish metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of collection efforts

4. Allocating Resources and Assigning Responsibilities

   • Assess the organization's existing capabilities and resources for threat intelligence, including personnel, tools, and budget

   • Identify gaps and requirements for additional investments, such as training, technology acquisitions, or third-party services

   • Assign roles and responsibilities for threat intelligence activities, such as collection, analysis, dissemination, and feedback

   • Establish governance and oversight mechanisms to ensure accountability, compliance, and continuous improvement of the threat intelligence program

Example Scenario: A global financial institution embarks on establishing a cloud threat intelligence program to support its migration to AWS. During the Planning and Direction phase, the institution:

• Identifies its critical assets, including customer data, financial transactions, and regulatory reporting systems

• Engages with stakeholders from security, compliance, and business units to understand their intelligence needs and preferences

• Prioritizes collection efforts on AWS CloudTrail logs, VPC Flow Logs, and threat feeds from financial industry information sharing and analysis centers (ISACs)

• Allocates resources for a dedicated cloud threat intelligence team, invests in a threat intelligence platform, and establishes partnerships with key security vendors and industry peers

By thoroughly planning and directing its Cloud Threat Intelligence program, the financial institution sets a strong foundation for the subsequent phases of the lifecycle, ensuring that its intelligence efforts are aligned with its business priorities, stakeholder needs, and organizational capabilities.