Contents
🕵️♂️ How to Perform Threat Hunting: A Practical Guide
Threat hunting is a proactive cybersecurity practice where analysts seek out signs of compromise that may have evaded traditional detection systems. Unlike reactive alert-based monitoring, threat hunting starts with a hypothesis and uses data-driven investigation to validate it.
🎯 What Is Threat Hunting?
Threat hunting is not about waiting for alerts—it’s about actively searching for hidden threats in your environment, including:
- Undetected malware
- Lateral movement
- Data exfiltration
- Command & Control (C2) traffic
- Insider threats
It’s often based on known attacker TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) from frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK.
🛠️ Prerequisites for Threat Hunting
| Requirement | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| ✅ Log visibility (SIEM, EDR, DNS, etc.) | You can’t hunt what you can’t see |
| ✅ Baseline of normal behaviour | Helps identify anomalies |
| ✅ Threat intelligence feeds | Informs your hypotheses |
| ✅ Skilled analysts with tooling | Manual analysis + automation combo |
🔄 The Threat Hunting Process
1. Define a Hypothesis
Start with a question, such as:
“What if a threat actor is using PowerShell to run malicious scripts?”
Sources of hypotheses:
- MITRE ATT&CK techniques
- Past incidents
- Threat intel reports
- Behavioural anomalies
2. Collect & Filter Data
Use your SIEM or EDR platform to pull logs from sources like:
- Windows Event Logs (e.g. 4688, 4104, 4624)
- DNS queries
- Process execution logs
- Firewall/proxy logs
- Sysmon data
3. Search for Indicators & Patterns
You’re looking for suspicious activity, such as:
- Execution of base64-encoded PowerShell
- Parent-child process anomalies (e.g.
winword.exespawningcmd.exe) - External C2 beaconing
- Credential dumping tools in memory
Use query languages like:
- Splunk SPL
- KQL (Microsoft Sentinel)
- Sigma rules
4. Analyse Findings
Dig deeper on anything suspicious:
- Pivot into related host/user activity
- Check hash values and IPs against threat intel
- Review persistence mechanisms
- Run malware in a sandbox if needed
Tools may include:
- VirusTotal
- Hybrid Analysis
- MITRE ATT&CK Navigator
- Velociraptor, YARA, etc.
5. Document & Report
Summarise what you found:
- Timeline of activity
- Affected hosts/users
- TTPs identified
- Recommendations for remediation
Report to stakeholders or integrate into your IR playbook.
6. Refine Detections
Once your hunt is complete, convert discoveries into detection rules. For example:
- Create a Splunk or Sentinel alert
- Write a Sigma rule
- Add enrichment to your SOAR platform
🔁 Each hunt should strengthen your detection pipeline.
📋 Sample Hypotheses to Get Started
| Hypothesis | Data Source | What to Look For |
|---|---|---|
| Suspicious PowerShell use | Sysmon 4104/4688 | Encoded scripts, AMSI bypass |
| C2 traffic via DNS | DNS logs | TXT records to external IPs |
| Credential abuse | Event ID 4624/4672 | Logon type 3 from multiple geos |
| Suspicious persistence | Registry, WMI | Unusual run keys or WMI scripts |
🧠 Pro Tips
- Hunt in off-peak hours for performance and visibility
- Build a library of saved queries and hypotheses
- Combine threat intelligence with data science (e.g. clustering, outliers)
- Don’t expect to always find something—learning what’s not happening is still valuable
✅ Summary
Threat hunting is both a mindset and a methodology. By proactively seeking out threats instead of waiting for alerts, you reduce dwell time, identify blind spots, and improve overall cyber resilience.
🛡️ “You don’t need to be breached to get better at defence—just curious enough to go looking.”