Strategic, operational, and tactical intelligence
We've discussed several analytical models that can help frame strategic, operational, and tactical operations – be that intelligence, hunting, or traditional SecOps. While there are individual books that have been written about each of these frameworks and models, and while we have just introduced them, it is also important to understand how they are all related and that each model can be overlaid on another.
Before we talk about stitching models together, there is another concept to describe, and that is Strategic, Operational, and Tactical. There have been a few different approaches to describing these phases, and to be honest, I think that they all probably work as long as you're taking a uniform approach and applying the thought processes the same way across all of your analytical processes and models. I choose to describe these high-level elements as follows:
- Strategic – Who is launching this campaign and why are they doing it?
- Operational – What is happening throughout this campaign?
- Tactical – How did the adversary carry out the campaign?
Each of these three elements has a great deal of analysis that can go into research to understand them for each campaign.
There are a few different ways to analyze information across models. As an example, here is a way you could combine the Intelligence Pipeline with elements of the Diamond Model, and strategic/operational/tactical observations:
Table 1.2 – The Intelligence Pipeline and the Diamond Model
You can use this kind of table to help structure and prioritize your research and response efforts. This becomes even more helpful when you're thinking about your collection strategy, hopefully before an event starts. As you fill this table out, you'll learn more about your adversary, the campaign, your capabilities, and where the opportunities are to frustrate a current or future adversary.
Another method for chaining models together is to combine the Lockheed Martin Cyber Kill Chain and the Diamond Model. This allows you to associate adversary actions mapped with the Diamond Model with other parallel campaigns, note shared elements between events and campaigns, produce confidence assessments based on your inferences, and also determine how far the adversaries may be in their campaigns:
Figure 1.6 – The Diamond Model and the Lockheed Martin Kill Chain (Source: The Diamond Model of Intrusion Analysis, Caltagirone, Sergio ; Pendergast, Andrew ; Betz, Christopher, https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a586960.pdf)
I do understand that this book isn't specifically just about intelligence analysis, but as I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, only when you tightly couple intelligence analysis, processes, methodologies, and traditional SecOps can you begin threat hunting. So the introduction to these models was really meant to help put you in the right mindset to approach threat hunting analytically, strategically, operationally, and tactically, and also to highlight that this is a team sport.
