Overview
For SaaS and technology companies operating in regulated environments, understanding who the adversaries are and how they operate is critical to managing risk effectively.
A threat is any circumstance that can cause harm; a threat actor is the individual or group that exploits weaknesses to achieve their objectives.
Effective defense aligns people, processes, and technology to anticipate tactics, prioritize controls, and accelerate detection and response. The goal is not just to react, but to build resilience through visibility, governance, and informed decision-making.
Governance, Risk, and Threat Integration
In information security, threats are not standalone concepts they are part of a structured risk management process.
A risk exists when three elements intersect:
Risk = Threat × Vulnerability × Asset
- A threat represents a potential cause of harm for example, a ransomware campaign or insider misuse.
- A vulnerability is a weakness that could be exploited such as an unpatched server, weak credential, or misconfiguration.
- An asset is anything of value to the business data, applications, systems, or services.
Governance frameworks like ISO 27001, SOC 2, and BSI C5 use this model to ensure that every identified threat is assessed in context:
What assets could be impacted, which vulnerabilities make them exposed, and what would the business impact be?
Threat intelligence provides the real-world evidence that feeds into this process connecting external events and emerging tactics to the organization’s internal risk landscape.
These insights should inform the risk register, update treatment plans, and ensure ownership of each risk and control.
Aligning security with the enterprise risk appetite ensures that protection efforts focus on what matters most.
Regular reporting to leadership on threat trends, residual risks, and control performance reinforces transparency, accountability, and continuous improvement.
Threat Actors: Profiles and Motivations
| Actor Type | Primary Motivation | Typical Activities |
| Cybercriminals | Financial gain | Ransomware, credential theft, fraud, extortion |
| Nation-State and State-Affiliated Groups | Espionage, disruption, strategic advantage | Long-term intrusion, data theft, infrastructure compromise |
| Hacktivists | Ideological or political impact | Website defacement, data leaks, denial-of-service |
| Insiders | Negligence, revenge, or financial motives | Data theft, sabotage, unauthorized disclosure |
| Supply Chain and Third Parties | Unintentional compromise or malicious infiltration | Tampered updates, dependency hijacking, partner breach |
| Opportunists / Script Kiddies | Reputation, experimentation | Exploiting exposed systems using public exploits or tools |
Understanding these profiles helps organizations align defenses with the threats most relevant to their assets, industry, and exposure.
Common Threat Categories
- Social Engineering: Phishing, smishing, and business email compromise (BEC) remain leading entry points.
- Malware and Ransomware: Extortion campaigns combining encryption, data theft, and public leaks.
- Identity Attacks: Password spraying, credential stuffing, MFA fatigue, and session hijacking.
- Web and Application Exploits: Injection flaws, API abuse, insecure deserialization, and broken authentication.
- Cloud and SaaS Risks: Misconfigurations, excessive permissions, exposed storage, orphaned credentials.
- Endpoint and Lateral Movement: Abuse of legitimate tools (PowerShell, RDP) for stealthy persistence.
- Data Exfiltration and Extortion: Covert data transfers via HTTPS, DNS tunneling, or cloud sync.
- Denial of Service: Application or volumetric attacks disrupting business services.
- OT and IoT Threats: Legacy devices and flat networks introducing physical and operational risks.
Threat Catalogues and Reference Libraries
Many organizations use standardized threat catalogues to structure risk assessments and ensure comprehensive coverage.
These libraries provide predefined threat scenarios that can be tailored to an organization’s context, saving time and improving consistency across audits and compliance frameworks.
| Catalogue / Framework | Purpose and Focus | Example Use Cases |
| BSI IT-Grundschutz Gefährdungskataloge (Germany) | A structured library of threats covering organizational, technical, and environmental areas. | Baseline for risk identification and ISO 27001 risk mapping under BSI 200-3 methodology. |
| ENISA Threat Landscape | Annual European threat report summarizing key trends, actors, and sectors. | Strategic awareness for management and risk context for EU-based operations. |
| NIST SP 800-30 / 800-53 Threat Sources | U.S. standards defining typical threat sources and events for federal systems. | Used in quantitative risk assessments and control selection for NIST-based programs. |
| MITRE ATT&CK Framework | Global knowledge base of adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). | Mapping detections and controls to real-world attack behaviors. |
| ISO/IEC 27005 Threat Catalogue (Annex Examples) | Provides a general taxonomy of threats and vulnerabilities linked to information assets. | Used for alignment with ISO 27001 risk assessment and Statement of Applicability. |
| OWASP Top 10 / API Top 10 | Prioritized lists of application and API security risks. | Applied in secure SDLC and application penetration testing. |
Using structured catalogues ensures that risk assessments remain evidence-based and repeatable.
When organizations adopt a hybrid approach for example, combining BSI Grundschutz for completeness and MITRE ATT&CK for technical depth they create a robust foundation for continuous improvement and audit readiness.
Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs)
Most threat campaigns follow a familiar sequence:
- Initial Access: Phishing, exposed services, drive-by compromise, or supply chain infiltration.
- Execution & Persistence: Malicious scripts, scheduled tasks, or legitimate tools.
- Privilege Escalation: Exploiting misconfigurations or known vulnerabilities.
- Lateral Movement: Using remote tools or identity federation paths to spread.
- Exfiltration & Impact: Data theft, encryption, manipulation, or destruction of logs.
Mapping detections and controls to frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK helps ensure coverage across the full attack chain.
Risk Drivers and Target Selection
Adversaries focus on what’s valuable, accessible, and time-sensitive:
- High-value data (intellectual property, PII, credentials)
- Weak or fragmented identity controls
- Complex third-party ecosystems
- Critical uptime operations (SaaS, cloud, healthcare, finance)
Rapid cloud adoption, remote work, and shadow IT broaden attack surfaces especially when visibility and control lag behind business growth.
Key Takeaways
- Risk emerges when a threat exploits a vulnerability in a valuable asset managing this triad is the foundation of cybersecurity.
- Timely patching, strong authentication, segmentation, and tested recovery drastically reduce impact.
- Threat intelligence and continuous monitoring improve prioritization and response.
- Using standardized threat catalogues (BSI Grundschutz, MITRE ATT&CK, ENISA) ensures completeness and audit readiness.
Governance that ties threats to risks, controls, and accountable owners sustains long-term resilience.