Evolving the Hunt: A Case Study in Improving a Mature Hunt Program - SANS Threat Hunting Summit 2019

As a major U.S. retailer with a strong cybersecurity focus, Target has long had a functional, mature threat hunting program. When David Bianco took over responsibility for the hunting program in early 2019, leadership’s key question was “How can we do even better?” But what does “better” mean for a hunting program, and how do you get from where you are now to where you want to be? In this presentation, we’ll talk about coming into an existing threat hunting program, prioritizing areas for improvement, and then implementing those improvements to make a great hunting program even better. Attendees will learn the key functions of a threat hunting program and how to evaluate the current hunting program maturity level, set an appropriate maturity improvement goal, identify and prioritize possible program changes to support the desired improvements, and understand how and why these efforts work (or don’t work!). David J. Bianco @davidjbianco, Principal Engineer – Cybersecurity, Target Cat Self @coolestcatiknow, Lead Information Security Engineer, Target