As loyal customers of the modern age are more inclined to use online services, adapting to new defensive cyber strategies have become a crucial part of businesses, especially when it comes to quickly identifying and responding to advanced cyber threats.
This is definitely a challenging task for businesses facing innovative cyber-criminals who are using new attack vectors to exploit secured infrastructure. The situation can be straightened out with an onboard talented cyber threat intelligence team. This team will identify potential cyber threats so that the security team can deploy a defensive strategy to prevent and protect the organization’s valuable resources.
But is the appointment of a threat intelligence team enough? This arrangement would seem fair only when you are not aware of the advantages of having certified threat intelligence analysts in your team.
Why should you hire certified threat intelligence analysts in your team?
For a continuously growing business, the key element is to have team members with a passion for expanding their existing knowledge and skillsets. Certifications and credentials are the best way to verify your team’s updated knowledge. Especially, when security-related certifications are considered, it’s mandatory to upgrade your knowledge regularly.
Certified threat intelligence analysts play an essential role in staying ahead of cyber-criminals. The below-listed points will help you understand why your organization should be hiring certified threat intelligence analysts for your threat intel team.
1. It Displays Determination and Commitment to Evolve - A certified threat intelligence analyst is more trustworthy than a non-certified threat intelligence professional. They not only go through intensive training but also prove their resilience in the exam. Also, to attempt an examination, the professional will have to either attend a rigorous training or have prior work experience in the industry. By being certified, a professional will prove that they have the determination and commitment to learn and evolve.
2. It Proves Concrete Elementary Knowledge and Advanced Skills - Having expertise in a certain domain starts with strong foundational knowledge. This knowledge is supported by a proper understanding of the latest and trending technologies to transform them into advanced skills. The credit goes to a well-structured course outline and the brilliant minds who tailored the training program to fill in every minute detail.
As cybersecurity is an ever-evolving industry, advanced knowledge is not a requirement but a demand. For that, a threat intelligence program will ensure, with its timely upgrade, to include all the trending industry-demanded skills.
3. It Helps Execute Operations with Increased Accuracy and Efficiency - It takes efficiency and precise skillsets to carry out the roles and responsibilities of a cyber threat intelligence analyst. Focusing on hands-on experience is very important to attain the required competence of a threat intelligence analyst. A certified threat intelligence analyst will be exposed to a real-time virtual environment where they learn to plan, collect, analyze, evaluate, and disseminate threat intelligence. Hands-on lab sessions that consist of the latest operating systems such as Windows 10 and Kali Linux will help increase the accuracy level while performing various threat intelligence-related operations.
4. It Saves Time and Effort - A team with certified threat intelligence analysts can save a lot of time and effort. This is possible because certified professionals are trained to perform daily operations of cyber threat intel. They also know how to tackle situations which are new and unknown to them. This thorough knowledge can only be gained through proper certified training or with years of experience.
5. It Proves Subjected Knowledge - A training and certifying program must guarantee the learning of the individual to be precise and subjected to threat intelligence only. The program must be mapped to NICE 2.0 and CREST frameworks to ensure that the threat intel analyst truly possesses the right skill-set to be a part of a threat intel team. The frameworks make certain that the knowledge gained perfectly fits the “Analyze” category of the NICE framework, specifically, the specialty area of “Threat/Warning Analyst (TWA).” While CREST framework ensures that the program is in compliance with the “CREST Certified Threat Intelligence Manager (CC TIM).”
For full-fledged knowledge and mastery in threat intelligence skills, it’s important that your threat intelligence team should have certified threat intelligence analysts in it. Quick threat identification involves a fair understanding of various phases of cyber threat intelligence. The Certified Threat Intelligence Analyst (C|TIA) program by EC-Council helps you learn about all these phases in a very detailed manner and gives you the perks mentioned above.