What is Threat Hunting?

Understanding Threat Hunting

Proactive security activities to search for and identify sophisticated threats that evade existing detection mechanisms. Threat hunting is a proactive cybersecurity practice where skilled analysts actively search through networks and datasets to discover threats that have evaded automated detection mechanisms. Unlike traditional monitoring which relies on alerts threat hunting involves hypothesis-driven investigation of potential adversary activities. Threat hunting methodologies are described in frameworks like SANS MITRE ATTCK and various security operations standards. Organizations implement threat hunting through dedicated hunting teams specialized tools threat intelligence integration and structured hunting methodologies. For example a government agency might implement a formal threat hunting program where specialized analysts develop hunting hypotheses based on threat intelligence regularly search for indicators of specific nation-state actors activity in log data network traffic and endpoint telemetry documenting findings in a knowledge base and improving automated detection based on hunting discoveries. Related terms Security operations Threat detection Advanced Persistent Threat APT Indicators of compromise IOC MITRE ATTCK framework Security analytics Forensics Security monitoring.