Compliance Framework Alignment
ISO/IEC 27001:2022 — A.5.7 This document is a configurable template that supports alignment with the referenced control. It is not legal or compliance advice, and it does not by itself certify conformity. Adapt the wording to your own environment, risk appetite and obligations, and have it reviewed by a qualified professional before adoption.
ACME TECHNOLOGIES PVT LTD THREAT INTELLIGENCE POLICY
Document Threat Intelligence Policy
Effective Date [Effective Date]
Policy Owner Priya Nair (Chief Information Security Officer )
Reference Control ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A 5.7 1. Purpose and Scope
The purpose of this policy is to establish how Acme Technologies Pvt Ltd gathers, evaluates and acts upon information about current and emerging information security threats, so that defensive decisions are informed by evidence rather than assumption. It sets out the organisation's approach to producing and consuming threat intelligence across the strategic, tactical and operational levels, and to feeding that intelligence into risk, vulnerability and detection activities. The policy applies to all employees, contractors, interns and third parties who collect, analyse, receive or act on threat information on behalf of the organisation, and it covers all information systems, networks, applications and cloud services within the scope of the information security management system (ISMS). The scale of the activities described here is deliberately proportionate: the organisation applies effort commensurate with its size, sector exposure and risk profile rather than maintaining capabilities beyond what its threat landscape justifies.
2. Policy Objectives
Through this policy the organisation seeks to: (a) develop an accurate and timely understanding of the threat actors, techniques and campaigns most likely to affect its assets; (b) shift from reactive incident handling toward anticipatory defence; (c) ensure that intelligence is relevant, contextual and actionable rather than merely voluminous; (d) route validated intelligence to the teams and processes that can use it; and (e) demonstrate that threat intelligence is a repeatable, governed activity rather than an ad hoc reaction to headlines. Threat intelligence is treated as a continuous cycle of direction, collection, analysis, dissemination and feedback, and the output of each cycle is expected to refine the intelligence requirements of the next.
3. Levels of Threat Intelligence
The organisation recognises three complementary levels of threat intelligence, each serving a different audience and decision horizon. Strategic intelligence describes the broad threat landscape, adversary motivations, geopolitical drivers and sector-wide trends; it informs leadership, risk owners and investment decisions. Tactical intelligence concerns the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) used by adversaries; it informs control design, hardening standards, playbooks and defensive architecture. Operational intelligence concerns specific, often time-sensitive indicators — such as malicious domains, file hashes, IP addresses and campaign details — that support detection, blocking and active response. Intelligence products are labelled with the level to which they belong so that recipients understand the intended use and confidence horizon.
Level Primary audience Typical use Example output Strategic Board, executives, risk owners Risk appetite, investment, sector posture Quarterly threat landscape briefing Tactical Security architects, control owners Control design, hardening, playbooks TTP analysis mapped to a common framework Operational SOC analysts, detection engineers Detection, blocking, active response Curated indicators of compromise (IOCs)
4. Roles and Responsibilities
The policy owner, Priya Nair (Chief Information Security Officer ), is accountable for this policy, for setting the organisation's intelligence requirements and for reporting on threat intelligence to leadership. Day-to-day collection, analysis and dissemination are carried out by Security Operations Centre (SOC) , which maintains the source inventory, curates indicators and produces intelligence products. Risk owners are responsible for incorporating strategic and tactical intelligence into risk assessments. Vulnerability and patch management teams are responsible for acting on intelligence about exploited and emerging vulnerabilities. Detection and response engineers are responsible for translating operational intelligence into monitoring rules and blocklists. All staff are responsible for reporting suspicious activity and for handling intelligence in accordance with any sharing restrictions attached to it.
5. Intelligence Requirements and Direction
Threat intelligence activity is driven by defined intelligence requirements rather than by whatever information happens to be available. At least at least once every twelve months, and following any significant change to the business, technology estate or threat environment, the policy owner reviews and records the priority intelligence requirements — the questions the organisation most needs answered, such as which actors target its sector, which of its technologies are being actively exploited, and which supply-chain dependencies present emerging exposure. These requirements direct where collection effort is focused and provide the benchmark against which the relevance of collected information is judged.
6. Sources — Internal and External
The organisation draws on a balanced mix of internal and external sources. Internal sources include security event and log data, prior incident records, vulnerability scan results, phishing reports from staff, honeypots or deception where deployed, and observations from monitoring tools; these ground external intelligence in the organisation's own reality. External sources include advisories and vulnerability notes from CERT-In (India) ; sector-specific sharing through Financial-services ISAC ; Vendor threat feed subscription ; and open-source intelligence (OSINT) such as reputable vendor research, public vulnerability databases, coordinated-disclosure notices and trustworthy community reporting. Each source is recorded in a source inventory together with its type, reliability, licensing or handling restrictions, and the intelligence requirements it helps satisfy.
Source category Examples Level served Internal telemetry SIEM logs, incidents, scan results, phishing reports Operational, tactical National CERT / regulator CERT-In (India) advisories and vulnerability notesTactical, operational Sector sharing community Financial-services ISAC Strategic, tactical Commercial / vendor feeds Vendor threat feed subscription Operational, tactical Open-source intelligence Vendor research, public CVE databases, disclosures All levels
7. Collection
Collection is performed against the recorded intelligence requirements and, wherever practical, is automated to reduce manual effort and latency. Machine-readable feeds are ingested into the organisation's tooling using structured, standard formats so that indicators can be normalised, de-duplicated and tagged consistently. Human-oriented sources such as advisories and research reports are monitored on a defined cadence. Collected data is stored securely, retained only as long as it remains useful, and handled in line with any traffic-light-protocol or contractual sharing restrictions. The organisation avoids indiscriminate ingestion: adding a source is a deliberate decision justified by an intelligence requirement, because unfiltered volume degrades rather than improves defensive value.
8. Analysis and Relevance Filtering
Raw data becomes intelligence only after analysis. Collected information is assessed for relevance to the organisation's own technologies, sector, geography and business processes, and information that does not bear on the organisation's assets or requirements is filtered out. Analysts evaluate the credibility of each source and the confidence that can be placed in a given item, correlate indicators and reporting across multiple sources, and where possible map adversary behaviour to a recognised techniques framework to reveal patterns rather than isolated data points. Analytical judgements distinguish clearly between what is observed, what is assessed and what is assumed, and each significant product carries a confidence level and a plain statement of its limitations so that recipients can weigh it appropriately.
9. Dissemination
Intelligence is delivered to the people who can act on it, in a form suited to their role, and within a timeframe that preserves its value. Strategic products are provided to leadership and risk owners on a quarterly basis, and more frequently when a material change in the threat picture warrants it. Tactical products are shared with architecture and control owners to inform hardening and playbooks. Operational indicators are pushed promptly to detection and response teams and, where safe to do so, into automated blocking and monitoring. Products state their sensitivity and any onward-sharing restrictions, and dissemination respects those restrictions. Where the organisation is a member of a sharing community, it contributes appropriately sanitised intelligence back to that community on a reciprocal basis, subject to confidentiality and legal constraints.
10. Integration into Risk, Vulnerability Management and Detection
Threat intelligence delivers value only when it changes what the organisation does, so it is deliberately integrated into three core security processes. In risk assessment, strategic and tactical intelligence informs the identification and rating of threats, keeping likelihood and impact judgements grounded in the actual behaviour of relevant adversaries. In vulnerability management, intelligence about actively exploited and emerging vulnerabilities is used to prioritise remediation by real-world exploitability and exposure rather than by severity score alone, so that the most dangerous weaknesses are addressed first. In detection and response, operational indicators and TTP analysis are converted into monitoring rules, alerts, blocklists and hunting hypotheses, improving the organisation's ability to detect and contain relevant threats. These integration points are the primary measure of whether the threat intelligence programme is effective.
Process Intelligence used Effect Risk assessment Strategic, tactical Threat identification and rating reflect real adversaries Vulnerability management Operational, tactical Remediation prioritised by active exploitation and exposure Detection and response Operational, tactical New detections, blocklists and hunting hypotheses
11. Governance, Quality and Feedback
The threat intelligence programme is itself governed and measured. The organisation tracks indicators of quality such as the relevance and accuracy of products, the timeliness of dissemination, the proportion of intelligence that results in a concrete action, and feedback from recipients on usefulness. This feedback is fed back into the intelligence requirements and source inventory so that low-value sources are retired and gaps are addressed. Intelligence sharing is conducted lawfully and ethically, respecting privacy, confidentiality obligations and the terms under which information was received. The threat intelligence function operates within, and reports through, the organisation's wider ISMS governance so that its outputs inform the security programme as a whole.
12. Review, Compliance and Exceptions
This policy is reviewed at least once every twelve months, and additionally after any significant security incident or material change to the threat environment, business or technology estate, to confirm it remains accurate and effective. Compliance is monitored by the policy owner, and material non-compliance may result in disciplinary action or, for third parties, contractual consequences. Any exception to this policy must be documented, risk-assessed, approved by Rahul Mehta (Managing Director ) or a delegated authority, and reviewed at defined intervals. Approved by the undersigned on behalf of Acme Technologies Pvt Ltd .
Policy Owner
Priya Nair — Chief Information Security Officer
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Approved by
Rahul Mehta — Managing Director
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