In a recent analysis of threat intelligence by OPSWAT, the findings underscored various challenges, nuances, and measures undertaken by enterprises to navigate the prevailing threat environment and prepare for upcoming challenges.

Malware is often exploited by threat actors as a starting point, allowing them to penetrate designated infrastructures. From here, they maneuver within the system to establish long-term access, inflict harm, or pilfer valuable information and proprietary knowledge. Addressing these threats head-on, enterprises are leaning heavily on valuable threat intelligence procured through advanced technological means, such as sandboxes and sophisticated malware analysis methodologies. Such a forward-looking stance ensures that these organizations bolster their system defenses, augment their incident management capabilities, and shape their security blueprints in line with the particular threats they anticipate.

A significant 62% of enterprises acknowledge the imperative of ramping up investments in mechanisms and methodologies that would amplify their threat intelligence prowess. Meanwhile, a mere 22% boast of having a fully-evolved threat intelligence system in place. A majority of these indicate that they are either just embarking on this journey or recognize the need for supplementary investments in tools and methods.

The research sheds light on some ubiquitous challenges that enterprises grapple with. These encompass the difficulty in detecting both recognized and novel malware strains (68%), wrestling with insufficient signature-based strategies (67%), and navigating through an array of disconnected tools (54%).

Interestingly, while only 11% of the survey participants employ AI for threat spotting, a promising 56% of security experts showcased optimism regarding its future applications. Conversely, 27% expressed reservations. Additionally, nearly half of the respondents highlighted that phishing URLs and email posed significant challenges, particularly concerning file types and delivery modalities.

Discover more insights from the full report.