Chapter 2: A Dramatic Hike

It’s Saturday. Your day off. You decide to go for a hike. You need to check up on your cave, and you could do with some fresh air.

On the way, you notice a cave that you’ve never explored before. You decide to do some spelunking. You notice subtle signs outside of the cave. The surrounding ground cover has been trodden down. You tread cautiously. Flashlight in hand, you step inside.

“All the world’s a stage!”, you hear " and all the men and women merely players".

You spin around to see an ubsurdly dressed young man in stockings, pantaloons and a frilly shirt. You mutter to yourself in realization. This is the hideout of the threat actors. You hear voices outside. It’s too late to escape unnoticed. There are now external thread actors as well as internal threat actors.

You hide and observe. People begin to file into the cave. You see the silhouettes of:

  • A young child with a laptop (Script Kiddie)
  • A suit with a question mark for a head (Hactivists)
  • Don Corleone (Organized Crime)
  • Benjamin Netanyahu (Nation State Actors).

Considering them carefully, you notice their differences in:

  • Sophistication
  • Funding
  • Intent

You start suddenly to a shuffle right beside you. Shadow IT looks up at you, innocently but menacingly.

The threat actors laugh and revel together, comparing their recent exploits:

  • “I exfiltrated some guy’s personal collection of nudes” one says. Your cheeks flush in anger.
  • “I’ve been spying on a safe house in town for weeks”
  • “I took down a network for three days”
  • “I’m blackmailling a local judge with his own affair”
  • “The real money’s in ransomware” says Don Corleone
  • “I’m shutting down every slaughter house in town”, says the hacktivist
  • “I’m building a more secure world”, you whisper to yourself.
  • “I just want to watch the world burn”
  • “I’ve defended my nation and my people by shutting down foreign intelligence networks”

As you listen, the sun catches your eye through the entrance of the cave. It’s getting late. You head out, and home. On the way out, you pass Vector in hir orange jumpsuit. He’s late. He’s carrying:

  • Mithril
  • A coil of CAT-5 cable
  • A Palantir
  • Windows 7 Live Media
  • On a USB flash drive.
  • A Scrapbook file
  • A gold chain around his neck

All while riding on Goku’s Nimbus.

OSINT Senki Open Threat Exchange MISP Threatfeeds.io CISA & AIS DC3 Microsoft Threat Intelligence CISCO Security Advisories SANS Internet Storm VirusShare Spamhaus

Assessing Intelligence:

  • Timely
  • Accurate
  • Relevant
  • Confidence Score

STIX/TAXII and OASIS, OpenIOC

ISAC

Just as you’re about to clear the last forested hill before the city’s umbra, a twig snaps behind you and you wake up to no vision and a throbbing skull.