Open Access
LEVERAGING CYBER THREAT INTELLIGENCE MINING FOR ENHANCED PROACTIVE CYBERSECURITY: A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
4
Centre for Cyber Analytics and Threat Intelligence, University of Bristol, United Kingdom
Abstract
In the contemporary digital age, the sophistication and frequency of cyberattacks necessitate a paradigm shift from reactive defense to proactive cybersecurity measures. Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) has emerged as a cornerstone of this proactive strategy, enabling organizations to anticipate, detect, and respond to threats more effectively. This article provides a comprehensive survey of cyber threat intelligence mining, exploring its fundamental concepts, diverse sources, and the advanced techniques employed for extracting actionable insights from vast, often unstructured, data. We delve into various approaches, from the identification of Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) and Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) to the complex challenge of threat attribution. Furthermore, we highlight the significant challenges inherent in CTI mining, including data volume, veracity, semantic understanding, and the crucial aspect of translating intelligence into actionable defense. Finally, we propose new perspectives and promising research directions to advance the field of proactive cybersecurity through more effective CTI mining.
Keywords
cyber threat intelligence (CTI),
threat intelligence mining,
proactive cybersecurity,
cybersecurity analytics
References
“SolarWinds hackers linked to known Russian spying tools, investigators say.” 2022. Accessed: Oct. 10, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://cybernews.com/news/solarwinds-hackers-linked-to-known-russianspying-tools-investigators-say/
R. McMillan. “Definition: Threat intelligence.” Accessed: Nov. 10, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://gartner.com/
D. Shackleford, Who’s Using Cyberthreat Intelligence and How, SANS Inst., North Bethesda, MD, USA, 2015.
H. Dalziel, How to Define and Build an Effective Cyber Threat Intelligence Capability, Syngress, Waltham, MA, USA, 2014.
C. Fachkha and M. Debbabi, “Darknet as a source of cyber intelligence: Survey, taxonomy, and characterization,” IEEE Commun. Surveys Tuts., vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 1197–1227, 2nd Quart., 2015.
J. Robertson et al., Darkweb Cyber Threat Intelligence Mining. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2017.
W. Tounsi and H. Rais, “A survey on technical threat intelligence in the age of sophisticated cyber attacks,” Comput. Security, vol. 72, pp. 212–233, Jan. 2018.
T. D. Wagner, K. Mahbub, E. Palomar, and A. E. Abdallah, “Cyber threat intelligence sharing: Survey and research directions,” Comput. Security, vol. 87, Nov. 2019, Art. no. 101589.
M. S. Abu, S. R. Selamat, A. Ariffin, and R. Yusof, “Cyber threat intelligence—Issue and challenges,” Ind. J. Elect. Eng. Comput. Sci., vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 371–379, 2018.
A. Ibrahim, D. Thiruvady, J.-G. Schneider, and M. Abdelrazek, “The challenges of leveraging threat intelligence to stop data breaches,” Front. Comput. Sci., vol. 2, p. 36, Aug. 2020.
M. R. Rahman, R. Mahdavi-Hezaveh, and L. Williams, “What are the attackers doing now? Automating cyber threat intelligence extraction from text on pace with the changing threat landscape: A survey,” 2021, arXiv:2109.06808.
M. R. Rahman, R. Mahdavi-Hezaveh, and L. Williams, “A literature review on mining cyberthreat intelligence from unstructured texts,” in Proc. Int. Conf. Data Min. Workshops (ICDMW), 2020, pp. 516–525.
R. Brown and P. Stirparo, SANS 2022 Cyber Threat Intelligence Survey, SANS Inst., North Bethesda, MD, USA, 2022.
A. Ramsdale, S. Shiaeles, and N. Kolokotronis, “A comparative analysis of cyber-threat intelligence sources, formats and languages,” Electronics, vol. 9, no. 5, p. 824, 2020.
“What is cyber threat intelligence? 2022 threat intelligence report.” 2022. Accessed: Feb. 13, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://www.crowdstrike.com/cybersecurity-101/threat-intelligence/
N. Sun, C.-T. Li, H. Chan, M. Z. Islam, M. R. Islam, andW. Armstrong, “How do organizations seek cyber assurance? Investigations on the adoption of the common criteria and beyond,” IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 71749–71763, 2022.
N. Sun, J. Zhang, S. Gao, L. Y. Zhang, S. Camtepe, and Y. Xiang, “Data analytics of crowdsourced resources for cybersecurity intelligence,” in Proc. 14th Int. Conf. Netw. Syst. Security (NSS), Melbourne, VIC, Austraila, Nov. 2020, pp. 3–21.
“AlienVault open threat intelligence.” 2022. Accessed: Oct. 10, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://otx.alienvault.com/
“A community OpenIOC resource.” Accessed: Oct. 10, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://openiocdb.com/
“IOCbucket.” Accessed: Oct. 10, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.iocbucket.com/
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- Dr. Mariam Al-Falasi, Dr. Tao Zhang, AUGMENTING SIEM WITH THREAT INTELLIGENCE FOR PREDICTIVE CYBER DEFENSE: A PROACTIVE THREAT HUNTING APPROACH , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 2 No. 03 (2025): Volume 02 Issue 03
- Haruto Nakamura, Yui Takahashi, Adaptive Authentication Framework for Agentic AI Ecosystems: Protocol Design, Trust Evaluation, and Security Analysis , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 3 No. 09 (2026): Volume 03 Issue 09
- Nguyen Minh Khoa, Tran Thi Lan Anh, Strategic Business Transformation through Data Analytics, Sustainable Practices, and Innovation Management , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 3 No. 09 (2026): Volume 03 Issue 09
- Dr. Tanvi Das, James D. Walker, A FEDERATED MULTI-MODAL SYSTEM FOR INSIDER THREAT DETECTION IN ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE USING BIOMETRIC AND CYBER DATA , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 2 No. 01 (2025): Volume 02 Issue 01
- Chinedu Okafor, Amina Yusuf Bello, A Strategic HR Framework for Reducing Employee Attrition and Enhancing Talent Acquisition in the Indian Banking Sector , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 3 No. 09 (2026): Volume 03 Issue 09
- Prof. Emily Zhang, Luca Romano, DEFENDING AGAINST EVOLVING CYBER THREATS: A HYBRID FRAMEWORK FOR ATTACK PATTERN ANALYSIS AND INTELLIGENCE INTEGRATION , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 2 No. 04 (2025): Volume 02 Issue 04
- Dr. Amara Ndlovu, Dr. Faisal Khan, CYBERSECURITY IN VIRTUAL GATHERINGS: RISKS AND REMEDIAL STRATEGIES FOR VIDEO CONFERENCING SOFTWARE , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 2 No. 04 (2025): Volume 02 Issue 04
- John M. Callahan, Advancing Cyber Threat Intelligence Frameworks: Integrative Models, Sharing Mechanisms, and Predictive Analytics , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 2 No. 07 (2025): Volume 02 Issue 07
- Julia H. Whitaker, PROACTIVE CYBER THREAT HUNTING AND PREDICTIVE INTELLIGENCE IN CLOUD-ENABLED CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE: AN INTEGRATED FRAMEWORK FOR RESILIENT DIGITAL ECOSYSTEMS , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 3 No. 02 (2026): Volume 03 Issue 02
- Ms. Shivani Jain, A Survey on Deep Learning Approaches for Malware Detection and Classification , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 3 No. 08 (2026): Volume 03 Issue 08
Similar Articles
- Dr. Laura Stein, ADVANCING PROACTIVE CYBERSECURITY THROUGH CYBER THREAT INTELLIGENCE MINING: A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 2 No. 02 (2025): Volume 02 Issue 02
- Dr. Mariam Al-Falasi, Dr. Tao Zhang, AUGMENTING SIEM WITH THREAT INTELLIGENCE FOR PREDICTIVE CYBER DEFENSE: A PROACTIVE THREAT HUNTING APPROACH , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 2 No. 03 (2025): Volume 02 Issue 03
- Julia H. Whitaker, PROACTIVE CYBER THREAT HUNTING AND PREDICTIVE INTELLIGENCE IN CLOUD-ENABLED CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE: AN INTEGRATED FRAMEWORK FOR RESILIENT DIGITAL ECOSYSTEMS , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 3 No. 02 (2026): Volume 03 Issue 02
- Dr. Alistair C. Finch, From Reactive to Predictive: A Framework for Integrating Threat Intelligence with SIEM for Proactive Threat Hunting , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 2 No. 10 (2025): Volume 02 Issue 10
- John M. Callahan, Advancing Cyber Threat Intelligence Frameworks: Integrative Models, Sharing Mechanisms, and Predictive Analytics , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 2 No. 07 (2025): Volume 02 Issue 07
- Dr. Layla Hassan, Reem Al-Mazrouei, EVOLVING PARADIGMS AND FUTURE TRAJECTORIES IN CYBER THREAT INTELLIGENCE , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 2 No. 06 (2025): Volume 02 Issue 06
- Dr. Mateo Alvarez-Ruiz, From Reactive to Predictive Security: Integrating Threat Intelligence with SIEM for Proactive Threat Hunting , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 3 No. 01 (2026): Volume 03 Issue 01
- Dr. Ahmed N. El-Tayeb, Miguel Ángel Ortega, INTEGRATING CYBER THREAT INTELLIGENCE WITHIN COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISES: A STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK FOR ENHANCED SECURITY POSTURE , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 1 No. 01 (2024): Volume 01 Issue 01
- Dr. Rohan Deshmukh, ARCHITECTING A ROBUST CYBER THREAT INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITY: A COMPREHENSIVE FRAMEWORK , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 2 No. 02 (2025): Volume 02 Issue 02
- Prof. Emily Zhang, Luca Romano, DEFENDING AGAINST EVOLVING CYBER THREATS: A HYBRID FRAMEWORK FOR ATTACK PATTERN ANALYSIS AND INTELLIGENCE INTEGRATION , International Journal of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Secure Networking: Vol. 2 No. 04 (2025): Volume 02 Issue 04
1-10 of 51
Next
You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.