Awareness of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) equips security teams to identify and stop adversaries before an incident becomes a major breach. Instead of relying on broad, catch-all defenses, security-conscious organizations can focus on attackers’ methods and take more targeted action where it’s needed most.
Threat intelligence platforms (TIPs) help inform this defense by connecting patterns across incidents and turning them into clear, actionable insights. ThreatConnect goes further, helping teams track and counter threats in real time with built-in intelligence, automation, and continuous learning.
What Are Tactics, Techniques, Procedures in Cybersecurity?
TTPs in cybersecurity refer to the specific behaviors and methods adversaries use to achieve their objectives during a cyberattack. Here is more information on each:
- Tactics describe an attacker’s high-level goals, objectives, or the “why” behind their actions, such as gaining initial access or exfiltrating data.
- Techniques are general methods adversaries use to achieve these goals. Techniques are the “how” behind the attack, like spear phishing or credential dumping.
- Procedures detail an attacker’s steps or processes — the “what” of the attack, often tailored to a specific target or environment.
How Threat Actors Use TTPs to Target Your Network
Threat actors use TTPs as a blueprint to carry out cyberattacks against your network. Each stage of an attack leverages specific TTPs to bypass defenses and achieve its objectives:
- Tactics: Attackers start with goals like gaining access to your environment or disrupting operations. This stage usually involves reconnaissance, delivery and exploitation, and acting on the objectives.
- Techniques: They select methods to achieve their goals, like exploiting software vulnerabilities, sending phishing emails, or using stolen credentials. These techniques are typically generic and applicable to any cyberattack campaign. They may not specify the technology, but they focus on the campaign methodology and the action sequence.
- Procedures: Finally, threat actors turn chosen tactics and techniques into concrete, environment-specific actions dictated by the target’s constraints. Procedures refer to the exact tools, commands, parameters, and sequence used. An example of a procedure may be creating a personalized phishing email that appears to come from a trusted colleague, including a malicious link that, when clicked, prompts the user to enter their login information on a fake website.
By adapting their TTPs to your organization’s unique environment, threat actors can evade traditional security controls, move laterally within your network, and escalate attacks.
How ThreatConnect Helps With TTPs
ThreatConnect empowers security teams to identify, track, and respond to adversary TTPs faster and more precisely with:
- Centralized intelligence: ThreatConnect aggregates TTP data from multiple sources — including threat intel feeds, open-source repositories, and internal investigations — to give teams a unified threat intelligence library.
- Contextual analysis: The platform correlates TTPs with real-time threat activity, helping analysts understand how specific techniques and procedures are being used against their organization.
- Automated detection and response: ThreatConnect integrates with your security information and event management (SIEM), endpoint detection and response (EDR), and other security tools to automate the detection of known TTPs, trigger alerts, and orchestrate response actions.
- Continuous learning: As new TTPs emerge, ThreatConnect updates its intelligence, ensuring your defenses evolve alongside the threat landscape.
- Actionable insights: By mapping observed activity to frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK®, ThreatConnect enables teams to prioritize and close security gaps while defending against the latest TTPs.
With ThreatConnect, organizations can move from reactive defense to proactive threat hunting — staying ahead of attackers by understanding and countering their TTPs at every stage.
Why Trust ThreatConnect?
ThreatConnect is trusted by the world’s most security-conscious organizations to operationalize threat intelligence and drive smarter, faster decisions. Our team combines decades of experience in cybersecurity, threat intelligence, and security operations to deliver a platform built for the demands of large, complex enterprises.
We’re proud to be the platform of choice for four of five top software companies and over 30 of the world’s largest financial institutions. Our solutions are recognized for their flexibility and ability to integrate seamlessly with your existing security stack, including SIEM, security operations center (SOC), and threat intelligence feeds.
At ThreatConnect, we’re committed to innovation and customer success. Our proprietary CAL™ technology, advanced analytics, and automation capabilities empower your security team to detect, prioritize, and respond to threats. With individualized support and a proven track record of reliable results, ThreatConnect helps you stay ahead of evolving cyber risks so you can focus on what matters most.
Secure Your Network With ThreatConnect
Gain the clarity and speed to stay ahead of TTPs. Contact us today or schedule a demo to see how ThreatConnect can help keep your network secure.