Counterintelligence is an integral part of any comprehensive security program. Counterintelligence activities are conducted to protect against espionage, sabotage, recruitment hostile organizations, or assassinations.

Counterintelligence is often associated with intelligence agencies, government organizations or the military but businesses also benefit from including CI in their approach to security. In cybersecurity, counterintelligence is used to support the information security triad of Confidentiality, Availability, and Integrity (CIA). Many organizations practice aspects of CI, but refer to it by different names, including data loss prevention (DLP), malware reverse engineering and Network forensics.

How counterintelligence works

Counterintelligence activities can be categorized as being either collective, defensive or offensive. Collective CI efforts focus on learning who the adversary is, how they collect information, what attack vectors they are targeting and what tools they are using. Defensive CI efforts focus on securing information and preventing an adversary from stealing or destroying it. Offensive CI activities focus on turning an attack into an opportunity to gain an advantage by using disinformation.

While most information technology (IT) security administrators routinely conduct defensive CI and collective CI, the value of using offensive CI is not always understood. With the right implementation, deception technology can be used to improve collective, defensive and offensive CI. Deception technology uses decoys, such as honeypots and virtual honeypots, to misdirect an attack and delay or prevent the attacker from going deeper into the network and reaching the intended target. By observing the tactics, techniques and procedures attackers use in their attack, defenders can gain valuable insight that can be incorporated into their defenses.

A custom certificate of completion will be available upon completion of this course.