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You have blind spots.
We find them.
Not every attacker triggers an alert. Managed Threat Hunting proactively searches for threats already lurking in your environment before they cause damage.
What is Managed Threat Hunting?
Your detection rules catch known threats. But sophisticated attackers operate beneath the radar. Managed Threat Hunting is the proactive search for those threats: hypothesis-driven, data-led, human-powered. Based on threat intelligence and deep knowledge of attacker techniques, hunters formulate scenarios and actively search your data for evidence. Every hunt improves your detection, whether or not a threat is found.
Find attackers before they find your data
Not every threat triggers an alert. Sophisticated attackers operate below the threshold of detection rules. Managed Threat Hunting is the proactive search for threats already present in your environment but not yet detected.
Threat hunters work hypothesis-driven. Based on threat intelligence, threat reports and knowledge of attacker techniques, they formulate hypotheses: what if an attacker has already gained access via this technique? They then search deliberately through the data for evidence that confirms or refutes that hypothesis.
This is not an automated process. Threat hunting requires human creativity, pattern recognition and deep knowledge of attacker behaviour. Every hunt delivers valuable output even when no threat is found: improved detection rules, new insights into your environment or identification of security hygiene issues.
What detection rules alone cannot catch
Detection rules are based on known patterns. Advanced attackers specifically design their techniques to evade those patterns.
- Nation-state actors and advanced persistent threat groups use living-off-the-land techniques that abuse legitimate tools. These generate little to no alerts in standard SIEM rules.
- The average dwell time before detection is measured in weeks. An attacker present for months can cause damage that far exceeds the cost of proactive hunting.
- Reactive monitoring only tells you what already happened. Threat hunting tells you what is happening right now, even when the attacker has been careful to stay silent.
What is hunted
How DEFION conducts Managed Threat Hunting
Hypothesis formation
Based on threat intelligence, incidents and risk profile, hunt hypotheses are formulated. What if an attacker used this technique?
Data exploration
Targeted queries and analyses on available data sources: endpoint telemetry, network logs, cloud activity and identity data.
Pattern analysis
Searching for anomalies, correlations and known TTPs across all integrated data sources.
Validation
Assessing whether found anomalies are actual threats or benign activity requiring documentation.
Detection improvement
Translating hunt findings into new detection rules so the same technique is automatically caught next time.
Reporting and feedback
Hunt report with hypotheses, methodology, results and updated threat intelligence for your environment.
Deliverables
- Periodic hunt reports with hypotheses, methodology and results
- New detection rules based on hunt findings
- IoC sweeps for relevant threats and campaigns
- Improved environment knowledge and baseline documentation
- Input for threat intelligence and detection engineering
- Immediate escalation when an active threat is confirmed
Which organisations benefit most?
Managed Threat Hunting is most effective for organisations that already have baseline detection in place and want to go beyond what automated rules can find.
- Organisations with a mature security operation that want to be proactive
- Companies in sectors with a high threat profile: financial, government, critical infrastructure
- Organisations that want to reduce the risk of undetected compromise
- Businesses that need to demonstrate NIS2 requirements around proactive detection
- IT teams that suspect unusual activity but cannot confirm it through alerts
Threat hunting is also available as a standalone engagement for organisations not yet using DEFION's MDR services, as a one-time compromise assessment or as a periodic health check.
Vendor-agnostic by design
DEFION works with the tooling you already have, or brings ours. No vendor lock-in.
FAQ
What is Managed Threat Hunting?
How often is hunting performed?
What if something is found?
How does threat hunting differ from threat detection?
Is threat hunting useful for smaller organisations?
Ready to find what
your alerts are missing?
Tell us about your environment and threat profile. We start hunting within days.