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Today, most of organization facing increasing on cyber threat spicily after fast development on Technology infrastructure and big demand from different sectors. This require preparation of defends against these attacks, which need to have strong threat intelligence where we can have accurate and timely real relevant threat providing insights into existing or potential threats to enable security team make right decision to defends before the attack happen and stop to be reactive waiting the attack happen to take the action and be more proactive to avoid such attack threat to happen.

On this Blog, I will focus on comparing threat intelligence feeds free vs Commercial feeds. What the features , benefits with the limitation that come with free TI feeds. How TI help organization by using the right use cases as per required based on the type of sector.

TI is streaming continue feed data for any potential and cyber threats that may occur or it being executed based on different external resources . This data can be cover widely information which include indicators of compromise (IoCs) such as malicious IP addresses , domain and file hashes, & malware signatures. In additional, the tactic , technique and procedure )TTPs that  highlight the important to keep SOC Updated with latest attack method.

There are four types category for Cyber Threat Intelligence and each serve different business unit inside the organization.

• First : Strategic Intelligence – for high level management where covering the most insights to broader threat landscape that include geopolitical factors, adversary motivations, and long-term trends. This type of feed will support decision maker in investment strategy to reduce the risk from corporate preceptive.
• Second: Tactical Intelligence – where it focus on real immediate threat  by understanding the tactic , technique and procedure which used by threat group actors where SOC Team can understand in advanced the type of attack and response pro actively with immediate defends.
• Third  : Technical Intelligence –  It provide specific information and actions which can be executed and implemented such  as malicious IP addresses , domain and file hashes, & malware signatures. This type will help SOC Analyst to monitor and discover the threats  on specific system and infrastructure.
• Forth : Operational Intelligence –  Where it provides specific attack, target, threat group, upcoming or ongoing campaigns with the objectives. It help SOC Operations for responding before Cyber Incident happen.

Commercial TI are offering accurate and time manner feed that done by experts and specialized cyber security vendors. They are using different data sources to analytics to provide the right result.

The benefit from the commercial TI as the following :

1. Less False Positive alerts
2. Update it in Real Time
3. Provide Threats in Details (Who, why, how , what )
4. Easy for integration with different Technology (SIEM, EDR, FW, SOAR)
5. Customizable by Industry , country/region, Organization.
6. Providing Data Feed in raw with clarification , explanation and action for mitigation.
7. Proactive by helping searching hidden threats in the network and not waiting the alert to happen.
8. Last , having support any time from the vendor with agreed SLA and KPI.
9. You can have dedicated OT or IT based on your requirement.

We always advise all sectors to use the commercial TI and the below the use cases that help organization to go with commercial TI or free one.

1. Large Enterprise and Government Sector.
2. MSSP.
3. Finance and Healthcare sector.
4. Organization using SOAR, if they have SOAR, they should have Commercial TI to help them creating actional playbook.
5. If any organization want to get the answer to (Who, why, how , what )

The Free TI feed can help small organization who may have limited budget but without getting deep analysis , details , support from the vendor. Although the weakness but they are still better and improve detection threat without extra cost.

Threat intelligence feeds are crucial in cybersecurity, providing accurate, timely, and detailed information for large enterprises, highly regulated industries, and mature SOCs. Commercial feeds offer expert support and are worth the investment for improved security and efficiency. Free and open-source feeds are cost-effective and useful for small businesses or security researchers. Combining both helps maximize protection, stay resilient, and align spending with budget, risk level, and security maturity.