What Is Threat Analysis?

In 2017, Equifax, one of the largest credit reporting agencies in the world, made worldwide news and shook the financial sector after suffering a devastating data breach. The organization had robust security protocols, but they weren’t enough. The hackers managed to access the sensitive personal and financial data of 147 million people.

The breach began with a minor oversight.

The company knew of a vulnerability in a web application, but decision makers left it unpatched. That gap should have been closed long before hackers could exploit it. Instead, the cybercriminals gained access, navigated through Equifax’s network, and remained undetected for months. They collected a trove of sensitive data, leading to:

• Substantial financial loss
• Irreparable reputational damage for the organization

The recent wave of similar data breaches, like Equifax's, illustrates the vital importance of a proactive, comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. Threat analysis can help organizations understand their risk profiles and implement robust threat analysis strategies that protect them against hidden threats, like shadow data.

Here is what you need to know about threat analysis, why it matters, and the basic steps to get started.

What is threat analysis?

A threat analysis helps organizations discover what security risks they need to be protected from — and what system components are vulnerable. This critical data helps leaders to:

• Strategically secure locations in their network architecture.
• Find ways to implement security effectively.

Most threat analyses identify assets to protect, in addition to finding and evaluating possible threats. These assets could include:

• Servers
• User hardware, such as personal computers and workstations
• Network devices, such as hubs, routers, and switches
• Specialized devices
• Data of all types, both local and remote, databased, stored, and archived
• Software, including OS, utilities, and client programs
• Services, such as applications and IP services

Threats also come in all different forms, such as:

• Theft of software, hardware, data, and services
• Viruses, Trojan horses, and worms
• Physical damage
• Unauthorized access to services, data, hardware, or software
• DDoS
• Software, hardware, services, or data corruption
• Information leak

Threat analyses are critical for organizations to take a proactive stance against cybercrime and ensure that they have a structure to identify, assess, and prevent potential risks. They provide invaluable insights so that companies can strategically prevent, respond to, and mitigate threats.

(Check out a real threat analysis report: Amadey Threat Analysis.)

Benefits of a threat analysis

Not only are cyber threats more prevalent today, but they are also getting more costly, too: the average cost of a data breach in 2024 is $4.88 million. Organizations today must take a proactive approach to security to prevent expensive consequences in the future.

One of the top ways that organizations stay ahead of attacks is understanding their cyber security landscape. Some of the most significant benefits of conducting a threat analysis include:

Minimize security vulnerabilities

Unknown vulnerabilities are a significant problem for businesses: a third of data breaches involve shadow data, meaning many organizations are unaware of some of their most critical information.

Investing in a robust threat analysis strategy benefits organizations by helping them understand and reduce their attack surface. The threat analysis continually updates the list of potential threats, enabling security teams to harden their security perimeters, reducing vulnerabilities and their overall risk profile.

(Related reading: types of vulnerabilities.)

Up-to-date risk evaluation

Consistent threat assessment and categorizing threats with a risk management system or internal repository will result in a continuously updated risk profile. This security attribute will greatly increase the organizational security posture.

These up-to-date risk profiles can be used during internal audits to assess security procedures and policies and help organizations improve their risk mitigation strategies. These are all critical for organizations that need or want to improve their security posture.

Updated threat modeling

A healthy cybersecurity strategy depends on effective, up-to-date threat models. These models give organizations a comprehensive view of their cyber threats.

However, the cyber threat landscape continues to grow and evolve at an alarming speed, so threat models need to increase their chances to keep up. Every new technology or service introduced to the market presents a potential security risk and new attack surface that cybercriminals are eager to exploit.

When to conduct a threat analysis

How often your organization should perform a threat analysis is neither random nor uniform. Instead, it needs to be an intentional decision driven by your organization’s threat profile and operational landscape.

Many choose to perform quarterly or bi-annual reviews, which is not ideal for everyone.

Organizations within industries that are considered high-value targets for bad actors — like financial institutions, governmental entities, and healthcare — will need to create a much more vigilant schedule, requiring more frequent analyses.

Conducting a threat analysis: 7 steps

Threat analysis is not a one-size-fits-all journey. Much of the process depends on the security requirements of an organization, its size, and the current security landscape. However, seven steps are common across every threat analysis:

1. Establish boundaries

Before starting the work, it’s critical to outline the total scope and the analysis boundaries. Decide if focusing on a specific application or department or broadly to the whole organization. The clarity of boundaries will ensure that the process is targeted and efficient.

2. Gather data

Data is the most crucial element in any analysis. Gather all relevant digital logs, network traffic patterns, behavior statistics, or other information to give the analysis a comprehensive view.

3. Find vulnerabilities

The right tools and systems allow analysis and an accurate assessment of the collected data. This way, they spot any potential issues or weak spots within the system.

4. Analyze threats

After finding vulnerabilities, the next step is to assess the issues more deeply. This stage is critical for understanding the nature of the threats and their potential severity if they’re exploited.

5. Evaluate risk

Some vulnerabilities carry more inherent risk than others. This step involves assessing how pressing the threat is and the potential impact if it is exploited. It allows organizations to prioritize vulnerabilities and tackle the most significant threats first.

(Related reading: risk scoring & risk management frameworks.)

6. Provide strategies & recommendations

Threat analysis is more than just pointing out vulnerabilities. This step entails forming an effective strategy based on the analysis's findings. The recommendations provide immediate and long-term plans that will help organizations strengthen their defenses.

7. Give feedback and iterate

Threats continue to evolve, so cyber defense needs to grow to prevent and address them. Once the analysis is complete, it's critical that leaders revisit, revise, and improve their security strategies regularly to adjust and remain relevant and effective.

Threat analysis to uncover hidden threats

Threat analysis allows organizations to fight against the rising costs and incidents of cybercrime. It provides a comprehensive understanding of the organizational threat landscape, evaluates the risk of vulnerabilities, and provides practical strategies for strengthening defenses. An effective threat analysis provides up-to-date risk evaluations to minimize vulnerabilities, prevent breaches, and mitigate the damage of any cyberattack.

It’s a critical tool for keeping organizational tech safe in a world full of cyber risk.