Cybersecurity, Threat Hunting, Network Telemetry, and a Proactive SOC: Game Changers

For cybersecurity, threat hunting, network telemetry, and a proactive SOC are game changers. The NOC and SOC teams at PJ Networks rely on a hunt-and-contain approach to proactively locate cyber adversaries as well as real-time data to patch vulnerabilities before cyber adversaries compromise your network and extract mission-critical data. Here, I’ll take you through how we deliver it, in four main categories: Data Enrichment, Threat Hunting Playbook Development, Anomaly Insights and Outcome Metrics.

1. Data Enrichment

Think of data enrichment as providing real context for raw network data prior to the mission launch. Our NOC is collecting network telemetry — logs, alerts, traffic data of all kinds — and then we overlaid that with external threat intelligence in the SOC.

Here’s why it matters:

• Context is king: Understanding that a suspicious IP address is owned by a bad actor or is a misconfigured device makes all the difference.
• Accelerate triage: On enriched data, we focus on real threats and don’t waste time with noise or false positives.
• Better hunting clues: Enhanced data can uncover patterns or tactics attackers might employ.

We mix together data from firewalls, intrusion detection systems, endpoint sensors and even so-called behavioral analytics products. This rich soup helps our threat hunters ask smarter questions and get better answers.

2. Threat Hunting Playbooks

You can’t chase threats around in the dark — that’s a prescription for overlooking very real dangers. That is why we develop threat hunting playbooks, which are step-by-step guides based on known attacker behaviors and techniques.

Here is what makes our playbooks effective:

• Structured and flexible: Each playbook lays out hypotheses to test, data sources to explore and actions to take.
• Linked to real attack scenarios: From phishing campaigns to ransomware, our playbooks got you covered.
• Continuous progression: We refine them based on new threat intelligence and what we’ve learned from our previous hunts.

For instance, if an unexpected outbound traffic is going to somewhere unknown, the playbook tells the team to validate the destination reputation, examine the user’s activity and potentially, isolate the systems that are affected.

Leveraging those playbooks, our hunters can take action rather than purely responding to alerts. They are also pro-active when it comes to hunting potential threats inside data.

3. Anomaly Insights

Not every threat arrives with a blaring siren. Sometimes they lurk in the subtle anomalies — say small deviations from average network behavior.

Our NOC and SOC will identify such anomalies using intelligent analytics, through:

• Analyzing current network traffic against benchmarks established over time
• Monitoring for abnormal behaviors such as login at odd hours or new ports being used
• Detecting indications of lateral movement in the network

The secret is transforming mountains of network telemetry into something we can act on. We tag anomalies that might signal continuing attacks or insider threats, before they develop into incidents.

And here’s the cool part — we do much of that automatically today with AI and machine learning to filter out the noise and uncover anomalies that actually matter.

4. Outcome Metrics

How do you know your threat hunting and network operations activities are succeeding? By measuring outcomes.

At PJ Networks, we look at a number of key measures:

• Time to discover threats: How long does it take us to uncover hidden enemies?
• Mean time to detect and respond: When a breach or failure occurs, how long does it take to respond to the event?
• Fewer false positives: Is enriched data and/or playbooks reducing time-wasting noise?
• Number of threats proactively neutralized: How many attacks have we blocked before they did any harm?

These measures help us to continually evolve our hunt-and-contain approach and provide greater security for your business.

Wrapping it Up

Reactive incident response is not the only benefit of proactive threat hunting based on NOC data. It’s being ahead of them, probing deeply and preventing attacks before they blow up.

ATESITE PJ Networks’ proactive SOC based on enhanced network telemetry and potent threat hunting playbooks that keeps your business secure against continuously evolving threats. We take the hunt to the enemy.

If cybersecurity is really your thing, you have no choice but to adopt proactive threat hunting. And now, you know the drill.

Stay safe and stay ahead!