Not all threat intelligence platforms are created equal. They vary significantly in the way and the extent to which they provide actionable intelligence, operational intelligence, situational intelligence, and in their ability to keep up with the incredibly fast-changing threat landscape.

Here are five key features any high-quality web intelligence solution offers.

1. INVESTIGATIONS POWERED BY AI 

As new threats appear all the time and existing ones evolve and spread with alarming speed, it has become humanly impossible for cybersecurity teams to manually sort through the massive amount of data out there, in order to identify potential threats. Given the sheer range of threats facing businesses and governments today, threat hunting tools and techniques can no longer be manual. They must be powered by AI.

An AI-powered web intelligence solution such as Cobwebs can reach all corners of the internet and identify relevant threats automatically. It can generate critical threat feeds, alerting security teams to the threats with the greatest risk first.

2. DEEP AND DARK WEB MONITORING 

A good web intelligence solution must crawl the web, deep web, and dark web continuously in order to identify threats. This crawling includes anything from marketplace listings – a company’s customers’ personal information might be for sale – to hackers’ forums and more.

3. REAL-TIME INFORMATION AND ALERTS

The main goal of a web intelligence solution is to help organizations – whether it’s a business or a local or a national law enforcement body – respond to vulnerabilities and threats before they turn into full-blown breaches and breakdowns. To do so, the solution must alert the organization in real-time. While historical threat intelligence can help identify patterns and provide insights, it’s the real-time information and alerts that help achieve the ultimate goal of web intelligence.

4. SIMPLE REPORTING

Simple reporting is just as important as real-time information and alerts. While it’s true that most of the time it’s the cyber-aware security teams who speak the cyber lingo and understand the deep details, a complex report can lead to a waste of precious time, especially if a threat is imminent.

In addition, in some organizations, the cyber team shares these reports with other stakeholders such as non-technical staff. As some threats involve physical infrastructure or operations, it’s critical for everyone involved to be able to understand the situation at hand. A good web intelligence solution comes with a variety of built-in reporting tools to simplify accessing and sharing the relevant data.

5. STATISTICS AND VISUALIZATION

Delivering reports in text form only may not be enough to ensure that security teams and other stakeholders can use the data meaningfully. A good web intelligence solution offers statistics and graphs that are visually easily consumable and comprehensible. These visualizations can allow security teams to notice certain patterns and trends at a glance, or in a much shorter time than reading a whole report. They can help security teams and other stakeholders make comparisons and use the data meaningfully.