Challenge

For the organization’s Red Team, the mandate is clear: be prepared for all types of attacks by simulating adversarial activities, such as cyber-attacks or other threats, in order to identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses and coordinate the appropriate responses across teams.

The Red Team sought a partner that could offer robust data and assist analysts in discerning the most relevant, actionable intelligence to address a diverse range of threats. The objective was to inform the company about potential risks, identify pertinent channels to monitor, establish alerting systems to reduce manual research, and correlate findings with other tools. Additionally, the solution needed to be a true force multiplier—enabling them to maximize their efficiency while empowering junior analysts to derive meaningful insights to protect their brand, customers, and employees.

Why Flashpoint?

Amid a competitive field, Flashpoint emerged as the standout choice for several reasons. Its intuitive technology and industry-leading data coverage offered unparalleled breadth and depth of information and delivered faster threat alerts and comprehensive insights—including historical information—across various channels. Flashpoint’s timely and nuanced finished intelligence reports and scoring systems ensured an unbiased approach, providing reliable and tailored risk assessments. The platform’s scale and agility in collecting data, particularly from hard-to-reach criminal underground sources, positioned it as the optimal choice for the airline’s complex intelligence requirements.

“Flashpoint is our command center that allows us to manage research, find threat intelligence and industry trends, and inform our response.“

Cyber Threat Intelligence Specialist – Global Airline

Results

Originally intended for the Red Team’s exclusive use, Flashpoint’s value transcended its initial scope, prompting adoption by both Cyber Threat Intelligence and Vulnerability Management teams. The following summary outlines each tool’s contribution to enhancing the organization’s security posture and illustrates how analysts leverage it to safeguard customers, employees, and the brand.

Flashpoint Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) played a crucial role in enhancing the airline’s security measures by closely monitoring customer credentials, avoiding ransomware threats, and minimizing third-party risks. This comprehensive approach helped to fortify the airline’s resilience, ensuring a robust defense against potential cyber threats. The integration of closed channel access from Flashpoint provided analysts with a unique capability to engage with threat actors in real-time. Notably, CTI democratized intelligence gathering, enabling junior analysts to contribute meaningfully despite having limited experience.

“We get the most context out of Flashpoint – I can see the entire conversation, go back in time, and understand risks more comprehensively.“

Cyber Threat Intelligence Specialist – Global Airline

In parallel, Echosec, by Flashpoint, proved instrumental in monitoring known threat actors, offering valuable insights into their activities and intentions. Echosec’s geospatial intelligence lens provided a valuable perspective on the origin and severity of threats, enhancing situational awareness for the airline’s threat intelligence team. Its ability to seamlessly correlate system detection with dark web activities allowed for the identification of trends, facilitating proactive risk mitigation.

VulnDB, distinguished by its extensive vulnerability coverage, played a pivotal role in discerning which vulnerabilities necessitated patching and which were less severe. VulnDB adeptly validated vulnerabilities, mitigating the risk of exploitation and directed the team’s attention towards exploitable areas. Notably, VulnDB exhibited faster coverage of zero-day and emerging vulnerabilities compared to industry benchmarks. VulnDB’s proprietary vulnerability scoring facilitated a quantitative assessment of vulnerabilities, eliminating the subjective human element and introducing a more rigorous approach to patch prioritization.

“Instead of asking the IT team to patch everything, we only ask them to patch the critical ones, which results in our systems breaking less and helps reduce the workload and increase the efficiency of the teams.”

Cyber Threat Intelligence Specialist – Global Airline

Conclusion

Flashpoint has proven to be an indispensable ally for the airline in an evolving threat landscape. By leveraging Flashpoint’s suite of solutions, the airline has successfully force-multiplied its team, increased the efficiency of risk identification, prioritization, and mitigation, and effectively secured itself from the most imminent threats across cyber and physical spheres. The partnership showcases the power of strategic intelligence tools in maintaining the integrity and resilience of a global brand in the face of persistent and evolving risks.

Learn more about Flashpoint

Flashpoint is the industry leader in threat data and intelligence. We enable mission-critical organizations worldwide to proactively and decisively confront security challenges with the most powerful data at the core.

With this combination of superior data, curated intelligence, technology, and community, Flashpoint is trusted by the world’s largest businesses and governments so they can better protect people, places, and assets.