Understanding the data that's been collected

Threat hunting involves dealing with event logs from different data sources. There is not a right answer for what is the correct amount of data or the right data sources, since it will depend on what you are looking for and the resources of your organization. But, in any case, the data that's used for threat hunting doesn't exist in a vacuum and it will be determined by the operating systems in the organization's endpoints, the devices connected to the organization's network, and even by the security solutions that have been implemented.

In the previous chapters, we stated that part of the threat hunter's skill set was being able to understand the network architecture and recognize unusual patterns both in the network activity and in the data that's collected from endpoints and applications. So, before we look at the data sources themselves, let's quickly review some of the basics regarding operating...