CrowdStrike Threat Intelligence: 3 Core Solutions Explained

What Is CrowdStrike? 

CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity company that provides cloud-based endpoint security solutions. Its main product is the Falcon platform, which combines endpoint detection and response (EDR), threat intelligence, and threat hunting capabilities.

CrowdStrike focuses on protecting organizations against cyber threats, such as malware, ransomware, and advanced persistent threats (APTs). Unlike traditional antivirus solutions, CrowdStrike uses machine learning, behavioral analytics, and a lightweight agent to detect and respond to threats across multiple environments.

This is part of a series of articles about CrowdStrike Falcon

CrowdStrike Threat Intelligence Products 

CrowdStrike provides three solutions that provide threat intelligence for cybersecurity operations: Counter Adversary Operations Elite, Adversary Intelligence, and Adversary Overwatch.

Falcon Adversary Intelligence

CrowdStrike Falcon Adversary Intelligence is a threat intelligence solution that intends to equip organizations with the tools and insights to potentially disrupt attacks. It uses automation, contextual enrichment, and integration, to support security responses.

Key features include:

• End-to-end automation: Reduces response time from days to minutes by automating threat detection, analysis, and countermeasure deployment across the security stack.
• Proactive brand and fraud monitoring: Improves visibility beyond the organization’s perimeter by identifying domain impersonations, exposed credentials, and leaked data.
• Simplified security operations: Includes a library of incident response playbooks to standardize workflows and improve response quality.
• 24/7 monitoring of external threats: Monitors the open, deep, and dark web for malicious activities that could threaten the brand, employees, or sensitive data.
• Attack surface visibility and threat modeling: Scans adversary-controlled domains and high-risk infrastructure to reduce the organization’s attack surface.

CrowdStrike Falcon Counter Adversary Operations Elite

CrowdStrike Falcon Counter Adversary Operations (CAO) Elite is a threat intelligence solution backed by human analysts. CrowdStrike assigns each organization an experienced analyst, who provides actionable intelligence, tailored research, and threat hunting to protect against targeted attacks.

Key features include:

• Dedicated analyst support: Each organization is assigned a CAO Elite analyst who acts as a trusted advisor, delivering threat intelligence, conducting research, and providing personalized threat briefings.
• Tailored threat intelligence: Analysts filter through extensive intelligence to identify adversary tactics and risks to the industry, region, and organizational setup.
• Priority intelligence requirements (PIRs): PIRs align intelligence activities with the organization’s goals. Analysts help create or utilize existing PIRs to monitor threats targeting infrastructure, employees, or industry.
• Proactive threat hunting: Analysts perform real-time, custom threat hunts specifically for the protected environment to detect advanced intrusions.
• CrowdStrike threat graph inquiry: The analyst leverages the CrowdStrike Threat Graph to analyze global security events, identifying the prevalence and impact of indicators of compromise (IOCs) in the region or industry.
• Digital risk protection: Monitors external sources, such as criminal forums and social media, to identify risks to the organization, brand, employees, and sensitive data.
• Takedown support: Enables the takedown of malicious content, such as phishing websites, fraudulent accounts, and domains, that could harm the organization’s reputation or operations.
• Requests for information (RFIs): Organizations can submit up to five RFIs per year to request custom research into threats. Additional RFI packs are available for purchase.
• One-on-one threat briefings: Analysts provide detailed briefings on adversarial activities and risks to the organization or industry, helping refine defense strategies.

CrowdStrike Falcon Adversary OverWatch

While not exclusively a threat intelligence solution, this offering provides threat intelligence as a core part of the service. CrowdStrike Falcon Adversary OverWatch is a managed threat-hunting service that disrupts adversaries by combining human expertise, AI-driven detection, and real-time threat intelligence. This service targets adversaries operating across endpoints, identities, and cloud environments, identifying and neutralizing threats before they can cause damage. 

Key features include:

• 24/7 managed threat hunting across endpoint, identity, and cloud: Delivers continuous monitoring of customer environments, hunting for adversaries that exploit gaps across endpoints, identity systems, and cloud workloads. 
• AI-powered threat hunting: The OverWatch team uses AI to detect stealthy adversarial techniques that evade conventional defenses. By analyzing patterns, applying hypothesis testing, and leveraging statistical methods, the hunters can identify novel attack vectors, such as malware-free intrusions, insider threats, and misuse of legitimate tools.
• Identity and credential monitoring: The service actively monitors for compromised credentials in criminal forums and other external sources. Threat hunters respond to identity-based threats by containing attacks, forcing MFA challenges, and mitigating risks.
• Cloud-specific threat defense: By leveraging proprietary cloud-native tools and visibility, the service identifies threats targeting cloud workloads, containers, and infrastructure.
• Real-time threat alerts and countermeasures: When adversaries are detected, OverWatch provides real-time alerts and deploys new detections instantly across the CrowdStrike customer base. 
• Reduction in operational costs and effort: Minimizes the need for in-house threat-hunting staff, cutting the time spent researching emerging threats and investigating alerts.

Related content: Read our guide to AI cyber security

CrowdStrike Threat Intelligence Pricing Model 

CrowdStrike offers a range of threat intelligence solutions under the Falcon^® Counter Adversary Operations portfolio. Each solution is tailored to meet cybersecurity needs, with licensing options based on endpoints, servers, active identities, or employee count. Pricing is available upon request for all products.

CrowdStrike Falcon^® OverWatch

Licenced based on capabilities:

• Endpoint hunting: Licensed per endpoint or server.
• Identity hunting: Licensed by active identity (accounts authenticated in the last 90 days).
• Cloud hunting: Licensed by server, virtual machine (VM), or container.

CrowdStrike Falcon^® Adversary Intelligence

Licensed based on the number of endpoints, servers, or employee count.

CrowdStrike Falcon^® Adversary Intelligence Premium

Advanced version of Adversary Intelligence, offering additional features and support. Licensed by endpoints, servers, or employee count.

CrowdStrike Falcon^® Counter Adversary Operations Elite

Requires Falcon^® Adversary Intelligence Premium. Licensed per endpoint, server, or employee count.

CrowdStrike Threat Intelligence Limitations 

CrowdStrike has some limitations to its threat intelligence solutions, which can affect usability, accessibility, and adoption. Here are the key limitations, as reported by users on the G2 platform:

• High cost for smaller organizations: CrowdStrike’s solutions can be expensive. Smaller organizations or clients with limited budgets may find the pricing less competitive compared to other providers. Additional costs for add-on features also contribute to the overall expense.
• Learning curve: The product can be complex to use initially, requiring time and effort to learn its full capabilities. While CrowdStrike offers free workshops and courses to address this, new users might still struggle to maximize the platform’s potential without proper training.
• Impact on low-configuration devices: On laptops or systems with lower hardware configurations, installing CrowdStrike can cause performance issues, such as slower operation, which might deter adoption in resource-constrained environments.
• Overwhelming data presentation: The platform provides a large amount of data in its dashboards, which can be overwhelming for users. This sometimes leads to distractions or difficulty in focusing on actionable insights, especially for those new to threat intelligence analysis.

Limited global threat intelligence integration: Some users have expressed a desire for more comprehensive global threat intelligence to be integrated into the platform, possibly as a dedicated tab or feature.

• Lack of assurance on data privacy: As a cloud-based solution, some organizations are concerned about whether sensitive data is securely handled or transmitted by the CrowdStrike agent. This concern can be a barrier for organizations dealing with highly confidential information.
• Lack of direct mapping between threat actors and threat intelligence: The web portal does not provide a direct connection between threat actor names and their related threat intelligence, which could improve the usability for tracking adversaries.

Exabeam: Ultimate Alternative to Crowdstrike Threat Intelligence

Exabeam offers a comprehensive Threat Intelligence Service (TIS) that provides curated, up-to-date threat indicators integrated directly into its Advanced Analytics deployments. The service enhances security monitoring and detection by enriching data with real-time threat context, helping organizations respond more effectively to emerging risks.

Key features of Exabeam Threat Intelligence:

1. Daily threat indicator updates: The TIS updates threat indicators multiple times a day, ensuring security teams have access to the latest intelligence on potential threats. The indicators cover critical categories such as ransomware IPs, phishing domains, and TOR network IPs.
2. Curated threat intelligence sources: Most threat intelligence feeds are taken from multiple vetted and trusted sources, ensuring high-quality, actionable data. The service also integrates open-source feeds for TOR network monitoring.
3. Integrated threat intelligence feeds: Threat intelligence data is categorized into feeds, such as ransomware-associated IPs, threat domains, and phishing sites. These feeds support preconfigured rules within Exabeam’s Advanced Analytics, helping detect anomalies like failed login attempts or malicious outbound network traffic.
4. IoC categories and detection rules: Each threat indicator category maps to relevant rules for anomaly detection. For example:
   • Ransomware IPs: Detects connections to known ransomware-associated IPs, triggering alerts for suspicious outbound traffic.
   • Reputation domains: Monitors interactions with domains frequently linked to malware or drive-by attacks.
   • Web phishing indicators: Flags access to phishing-related domains to prevent credential theft and unauthorized access.
5. Seamless cloud integration: The Threat Intelligence Service is fully integrated into Exabeam’s cloud-delivered Advanced Analytics and Data Lake deployments via an Exabeam Data Service (EDS) cloud connector. This connector securely retrieves and updates threat indicators without the need for separate installation or licensing.
6. Bundled with Advanced Analytics deployments: Unlike some competitors that require additional licensing fees, the Exabeam Threat Intelligence Service is included with Advanced Analytics deployments. This approach reduces overhead and provides immediate value without extra costs. The Threat Intelligence Service supports industry-standard STIX/TAXII protocols, enabling seamless ingestion of structured threat intelligence from external sources for enhanced detection and correlation.

By incorporating real-time threat feeds, mapping them to detection rules, and integrating seamlessly with cloud or on-premise environments, Exabeam’s Threat Intelligence Service offers a robust alternative to CrowdStrike. Organizations benefit from actionable intelligence without additional licensing fees.

Learn more about Exabeam SIEM