When I was first asked to write this book, it was supposed to be about applying military targeting methodology to threat intelligence. However, when I started writing, I began to ask:

• How is threat intelligence beneficial to organizations?
• How can we create value from threat intelligence?

So, the topic began to change to something I believe that is missing in how we operate as IT organizations. Threat intelligence is worthless to organizations if it is not applicable to them. Once it becomes applicable to an organization, it has to be communicated to someone to take action on. It sounds so simple but when we look further, there are so many touch points with different parts of the organization and different processes between teams, that the topic eventually morphed into what I call cyber intelligence.

If you spend some time looking at the cyber security news on your social media, you can read about the latest exploitation, the need for more cyber security professionals, and how insecure we are. It feels like sensationalism and further drives paranoia of being labeled "the next victim" for senior leadership. How many times have we seen senior leadership step down because of a breach? Perhaps some breaches were due to neglect, but I'm keen to think that we (collectively) are riddled with archaic and bureaucratic business processes that do not allow flexibility for decentralized decision making. 

Does your IT Operations and IT Security leadership act as one in decision making for the overall IT decisions, using information that impacts each side? If they do, then you should just put this book down because this isn't for you. If they don't, then you understand the pain of when separation of duties impact how quickly things get done.

In the military, intelligence capability allows a commander to understand the environment around them in order to make decisions. This book is about how we can take a variation of military intelligence processes and apply it across the organization. Whether you are an entry-level analyst or a senior manager, there is something for you to learn and put into practice right away in your organization.