At 2:15 AM, our monitoring systems exploded with alerts. One of our clients, operating in a country engaged in armed conflict, was under attack. We’d received threat intelligence hours earlier from our CISO warning of potential cyber operations targeting organizations in the conflict zone. Now those warnings had become reality: massive EPS (Events Per Second) spikes across multiple servers, unusual egress traffic patterns suggesting data exfiltration attempts. Our threat intelligence team moved fast, correlating the attack patterns with known adversary tactics we’d been tracking. Within minutes, we contained what could have been a catastrophic breach.
Every day, you come across news about cyberattacks—each one leaving behind digital artifacts, including IOCs (Indicators of Compromise) and attacker tactics and techniques. As a Threat Intel Analyst, our primary concern is analyzing this data to produce actionable intelligence that prevents future attacks. This intel is then shared with each client or integrated directly into their SIEM, turning raw data into real defense.
However, here’s where the real challenge lies: the threat landscape is constantly evolving. Threats posed to the banking sector are vastly different from those targeting the healthcare or automobile industries. Some threat actors have purely financial motives, hunting for quick ransomware payouts. Others want to steal credentials, conduct espionage, or simply deface websites for ideological reasons. They choose their methods and targets accordingly, creating a complex web of adversaries that requires constant analysis and adaptation.
With cybercrime damages projected to hit $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, organizations are desperately seeking analysts who can decode these threat patterns. If you’re ready to enter this critical field, these courses will teach you to track adversaries, analyze their methods, and transform scattered intelligence into strategic defense.
What is CyberThreat Intelligence?
Cyber Threat Intelligence is knowledge about adversaries—their motivation, intentions, and methods—that is collected, analyzed, and disseminated to help security and business teams protect critical assets. In simpler terms: we gather intel to enable threat-informed defense, staying one step ahead of attackers rather than constantly playing catch-up.
Think of it as the difference between knowing that cyberattacks happen versus understanding exactly who’s targeting your industry, what tools they’re using, and what they’re after. This intelligence transforms security from reactive firefighting to proactive defense.
Cost of Neglecting CTI
In 2021, gaming giant EA (Electronic Arts) learned this lesson the hard way. Attackers stole nearly 780 GB of data, including valuable source code for games like FIFA 21 and the Frostbite engine. The kicker? The initial breach started with stolen Slack session cookies that were being sold on dark web forums for a meager $10.
This was a preventable breach. Had EA’s threat intelligence team been monitoring dark web marketplaces for mentions of their company or employee credentials, they could have detected and invalidated those cookies before attackers gained access. Instead, a $10 purchase led to one of gaming’s most significant data breaches.
Types of Threat Intelligence:
Threat intelligence operates at three distinct levels, each serving different audiences and purposes:
- Tactical Intelligence
Focuses on TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) used by threat actors. This technical intelligence feeds directly into security tools—think IOCs, malware signatures, and attack patterns that your SOC team uses daily.
- Operational Intelligence
Provides specific technical details about ongoing or imminent attacks. This includes campaign analysis, threat actor infrastructure, and targeted vulnerabilities—intelligence that helps incident responders and threat hunters understand active threats.
- Strategic Intelligence
High-level analysis designed for executives and decision-makers. This non-technical intelligence covers threat landscape trends, risk assessments, and adversary motivations that shape security strategy and budget decisions.
Why Should You Trust Us and This Guide?
Class Central is a TripAdvisor for online education. We make it easier to discover the right courses without having to jump across multiple platforms. With over 250,000 courses in our catalog, we’ve already helped more than 100 million learners find their next course.
Now, why should you trust this guide?
In my capacity as a senior security analyst, I have created multiple threat intel reports/ advisories for the clients and the leadership. Additionally, I have trained young professionals to gather effective threat intel and map attacks to the MITRE ATT&CK Framework. I can vouch for this guide as I have personally benefited from the courses that I have covered in the list.
| Course Highlight | Workload |
| Learn the Basics of MITRE ATT&CK Framework and CTI (Udemy) | ~3.5 hours |
| Learn Threat Hunting Skills for SOC Analysts (Udemy) | ~8.5 hours |
| Learn to Gather Threat Intel to Take Down Threat Actors (Udemy) | ~1.5 hour |
| Learn the Fundamentals of Threat Intelligence Lifecycle (IBM) | ~15 hours |
| Learn about Advanced Persistent Threat and Real-World Use Cases (Udemy) | ~2.5 hours |
| Learn about Cyber Threat Landscape (LinkedIn) | ~1.2 hours |
Learn the Basics of MITRE ATT&CK Framework and CTI (Udemy)
- Level: Beginner to Intermediate
- Rating: 4.6
- Duration: 3.5 hours
- Cost: Paid
I completed this course a while back. This course is very well designed to give you the crux of the MITRE ATT&CK framework. MITRE is a globally accessible knowledge base of adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs): For example, Reconnaissance (Tactic) → Active Scanning (Technique) → Vulnerability Scanning (Sub-technique). Christopher Nett shares a lot of practical insight, which makes this course ideal for anyone looking to learn MITRE for real-world defense. It covers both the theoretical and practical aspects through use cases of Winnti/APT 41 (Advanced Persistent Threat). Further, it delves into other frameworks like the Cyber Attack Kill Chain and the Diamond Model of Intrusion. This course is suitable for beginners and experienced professionals who wish to brush up on their fundamentals. NOTE: A lot of CTI terms trace their origin to military jargon—for example, the Cyber Attack Kill Chain was coined by Lockheed Martin. As a senior security professional, I have come across incidents where there was a breach without any alerts getting triggered. It’s a nightmare for any security professional, but this can be prevented by focusing on detection over prevention. This gives rise to a new breed of security analysts, a.k.a “Threat Hunters,” who operate with the mindset that our defense is already breached. That gives us the Golden Rule of Cybersecurity: “Assume breach.” What I like about the instructor, Vonnie Hudson, is that he doesn’t follow a textbook approach; rather, he hits you with the ground realities of security operations. As modern SOCs require proactive threat hunting, it moves beyond traditional security monitoring. The course focuses on tools like Splunk, which is widely used in the industry. This course directly addresses the skills hiring managers look for in SOC analysts. It’s ideal for someone looking to transition from a Tier 1 to a Tier 2 SOC analyst role. But if you’re new to cybersecurity, you might feel overwhelmed, so cover foundational courses first. I remember when I started working on CTI, the mistake that I made—and many others make—is focusing solely on IOCs, i.e., malicious domains, URLs, hash values, etc., not knowing attackers can easily abandon them, making them practically useless beyond a certain time. This course dismantles that false notion within the first few modules. What attackers can’t abandon easily are their motives and behavior, tactics, and techniques. As systems are logical but people are psychological, this lays the groundwork to track and neutralize threat actors. This course gives a high-level overview of the phases of threat intelligence, which will help build a solid foundation, but experienced professionals might find it surface-level. It offers a bird’s-eye view into CTI, so learners can decide based on their goals. This course is offered by IBM and covers the full intelligence lifecycle: planning & direction → collection → data sources → processing → analysis & production → dissemination. The course comprises six modules, assessments, and a shareable certificate backed by IBM. The course is loaded with concepts, so expect to do some heavy lifting. It’s suitable for beginners and managers alike, so you can avoid imposter syndrome in strategic meetings. Furthermore, it covers topics like reporting, which is crucial as CXOs need to act on those. Even though it offers great depth in the CTI lifecycle, the course misses out on tools like SIEM, EDR, and XDR. During my academics, I worked on case studies on APTs. I was surprised to find that a lot of APTs are state-sponsored, with hundreds or thousands of hackers working day and night to launch attacks on other states. This course covers APTs and their real-world use cases. APTs use advanced and sophisticated techniques like zero-day attacks and custom malware like WannaCry to breach security controls. They are persistent—once inside, they maintain a long-term hold, sometimes even 5 to 10 years for long-term intelligence gathering. The course further delves into APTs like APT1, which is attributed to Unit 61398 of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), a state-sponsored group involved in cyber espionage. It targets primarily critical US infrastructure like aerospace, energy, telecommunications, and finance. Although this course misses out on vulnerabilities and countermeasures, it’s well-suited for aspiring threat intelligence analysts, as APTs pose a significant risk to enterprise security.
What You’ll learn
Learn Threat Hunting Skills for SOC Analysts (Udemy)
What you’ll Learn
Learn to Gather Threat Intel to Take Down Threat Actors (Udemy)
What You’ll Learn
Learn the Fundamentals of Threat Intelligence Lifecycle (IBM)
What You’ll Learn
Learn about Advanced Persistent Threat and Real-World Use Cases (Udemy)
What You’ll Learn
Learn about Cyber Threat Landscape (LinkedIn)
DIPLOMA
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5-6hrsbeginner levelDIPLOMA
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1.5-3hrsbeginner levelDIPLOMA
1.5-3hrsbeginner level
