What is a Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP)?

A threat intelligence platform, or TIP, is a cybersecurity solution used to collect, normalize, enrich, analyze, and share threat information intelligence data across systems. It integrates with your security tools to turn raw data into actionable intelligence, helping teams detect, respond to, and mitigate threats faster.

Why Do Security Teams Need a TIP?

Modern enterprises face many threats every day, from phishing and ransomware to advanced persistent threats (APTs) and insider attacks. At the same time, many security teams are understaffed, overworked, and managing an overwhelming number of tools and data sources. Without the right platform, critical threat intelligence often goes underutilized. A cyber threat intelligence platform gives security professionals a unified system to:

Automate the analysis of threat intelligence feeds
Correlate indicators of compromise (IOCs) across various sources
Share enriched intel across internal and external stakeholders
Improve detection and response time with smarter alerting
78%
Say threat intelligence critical for achieving strong security posture
70%
Organizations say they’re swamped by cyberthreat data

Breaking Down "TIP"

Threat

The potential for any other party to access or interfere with the normal planned operations of an information network. Common threats today include:

APT
Botnets
DDOS
Ransomware

Intelligence

Knowledge of a threat gained by human analysts or identified by events within the system. Intelligence is a broad term, but a TIP presents analysts with specific kinds of intelligence that can be automated, including:

Technical knowledge of attacks, including indicators
Finished intelligence – the output of human beings looking at the available information and reaching conclusions about situational awareness, predicting potential outcomes or future attacks, or estimating adversary capabilities
Human intelligence – any intelligence gathered by humans, such as lurking within forums to check for suspicious activity

Platform

A packaged product that integrates with existing tools and products, presenting a threat intelligence management system that automates and simplifies much of the work analysts have traditionally done themselves.

How Does a Threat Intelligence Platform Work?

A TIP automates the end-to-end process of collecting and operationalizing cyber threat intelligence (CTI). It connects to multiple data sources, enriches and scores the data, integrates it with your detection and response tools, and helps your analysts take timely action.

TIPs are typically able to ingest threat intelligence feeds from various sources, including both structured and unstructured data.

Common Intel Sources:

Open-source threat intelligence (OSINT)
Commercial feeds from threat intelligence services
Government and ISAC bulletins
Internal security telemetry and SIEM data
Publicly available information like malware repositories and social media

Supported Data Formats:

STIX/TAXII
JSON and XML
Email
CSV, TXT, PDF, Microsoft Word document

Normalizing, Deduplicating, and Enriching Threat Data

Raw threat data can be inconsistent, redundant, or incomplete. TIPs apply normalization to convert different formats into a consistent structure and deduplication to eliminate repeated IOCs. Then, enrichment adds valuable context such as:

Threat actor attribution
CVE and vulnerability mappings
Behavior indicators of compromise (IoCs)
Historical sightings
Geolocation and infrastructure details

Scoring and Prioritizing Potential Threats

TIPs apply customizable scoring logic to assess risk severity and filter out noise. Scores may be based on:

  • Source reliability
  • Campaign associations
  • Exploit availability
  • Relevance to industry or geography

This helps security analysts focus on high-priority alerts that matter to their specific security needs.

Integrating with Detection and Response Workflows

Enriched and scored intelligence is distributed to:

  • SIEM platforms (Security Information and Event Management)
  • SOAR platforms (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response)
  • EDR/IPS tools for blocking malicious IPs, domains, or files
  • Firewalls and email gateways
  • Dashboards or APIs for human analysts and third-party tools

TIPs act as the bridge between threat intelligence sources and enforcement tools, turning intel into immediate defensive actions.

What Makes a TIP Different From a SIEM, Feed, or SOAR?

While some of their capabilities may overlap, each security platform plays a different role:

  • Threat feeds deliver raw data. TIPs make the data actionable by enriching, scoring, and correlating it.
  • SIEMs manage log data and event correlation. TIPs feed enriched threat data into the SIEM to enhance detection.
  • SOAR platforms automate response workflows. TIPs fuel those responses with timely curated intelligence.

A TIP centralizes and operationalizes intelligence. It collects data points and transforms it into insight.

Use Cases for a Cyber Threat Intelligence Platform

  • Threat Hunting: Search across endpoints, logs, and cloud for IOCs based on enriched intel.
  • Incident Response: Use context from TIPs to triage and escalate alerts faster.
  • Vulnerability Prioritization: Combine threat data with CVE severity to focus patching efforts.
  • Threat Actor Tracking: Map indicators, campaigns, and behaviors to known adversary TTPs.
  • Third-Party Risk Monitoring: Watch for supply chain threats targeting vendors or partners.
  • Intel Sharing: Distribute insights to peer organizations or ISAC communities via trusted channels.

By connecting your security systems to a TIP, you streamline CTI workflows and elevate your entire security posture.

TIP Integrations

Data that has been normalized, vetted, and enriched must then be delivered to systems that can use it for automated enforcement and monitoring. The purpose of this is to provide these technologies with what is essentially a “cyber no-fly list”, much like the kind of no-fly list you might encounter at an airport. Based on background knowledge, certain IPs, domains, and more should not be accessed or allowed within the network.

A Threat Intelligence Platform works with SIEM and log management system vendors behind the scenes, pulling down indicators to push across to security solutions within the customer network infrastructure. The burden of establishing and maintaining these integrations is therefore lifted from the analysts and instead shifted over to the SIEM and TIP vendors.

Possible integrations include:

SIEM platforms
Endpoint detection and antivirus platforms
SOAR platforms or ticketing/project management tools
Firewall, IDS/IPS, and email security systems
Threat intelligence marketplaces and sharing groups
Internal dashboards via custom API integrations

How Can You Measure the Value of a TIP?

To evaluate TIP effectiveness, track these KPIs:

Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR)
Volume of threat intelligence feeds ingested and curated
Percentage of IOCs enriched and used in enforcement
False positive reduction from SIEM or SOAR
Analyst time saved through automation
Number of workflows automated or augmented with CTI
Volume of intelligence shared with external stakeholders

These metrics demonstrate both security ROI and operational efficiency.

Want to See a TIP in Action?

Anomali ThreatStream is the leading cyber threat intelligence platform designed for scale, automation, and visibility. It integrates seamlessly with your security ecosystem, supports CTI workflows out of the box, and connects your analysts to curated threat intelligence feeds and advanced analytics. With ThreatStream, your team can go from data overload to streamlined detection. Schedule a demo here.

Frequently Asked Questions About TIPs

What is a threat intelligence platform used for?

A TIP is used to collect, enrich, and operationalize threat intelligence across your cybersecurity tools. It enables faster detection and response to threats and helps security teams make more informed decisions.

Who uses a TIP?

Security operations centers (SOCs), threat intelligence analysts, CISOs, and incident responders all benefit from using a TIP. Each group relies on it for different tasks, from automation to strategic insights.

How does a TIP help with malware detection and vulnerabilities?

TIPs ingest data from malware analysis tools and CVE databases, helping analysts identify active threats and prioritize patching. This boosts detection and shortens response time.

Can a TIP integrate via API?

Yes. Most modern threat intelligence platforms offer REST APIs or plugin-based integrations, allowing custom connections to internal dashboards, automation platforms, or third-party security tools.

Is a TIP the same as a CTI platform?

While sometimes used interchangeably, a TIP is specifically focused on automating the lifecycle of threat intelligence, from ingestion to distribution. It supports broader CTI workflows, including threat sharing and stakeholder communication.