Decision-Ready Verdicts
Decision-Ready Verdicts are high-fidelity, actionable conclusions delivered by automated security tools or managed service providers (such as MDRs) that enable security teams to take immediate remedial action without requiring further manual investigation or validation.
In the traditional Security Operations Center (SOC) workflow, tools generate "alerts" that act as leads—indicators that something might be wrong. An analyst must then triage, investigate, and correlate data to determine if the alert is a true positive. A Decision-Ready Verdict avoids this "investigative debt" by automating triage and analysis, presenting the analyst with a confirmed diagnosis (the verdict) rather than a symptom.
Core Characteristics of a Decision-Ready Verdict
A verdict is considered "decision-ready" only if it satisfies specific criteria that remove ambiguity for the human operator.
High Fidelity (Zero Noise): The verdict is free of false positives. It has been validated through multi-stage analysis (often involving AI or human-in-the-loop verification) to ensure the threat is real.
Context-Rich: It includes all necessary "Who, What, Where, When, and Why" details. Instead of just saying "Malware Detected," it specifies "Ransomware detected on Finance Server A, originating from Phishing Email B, currently attempting lateral movement to Server C."
Prescriptive: It provides a clear, recommended course of action. It does not just describe the problem; it dictates the solution (e.g., "Isolate Host," "Reset Credentials," or "Block IP").
The Operational Value: Speed and Precision
The primary goal of Decision-Ready Verdicts is to reduce key SOC metrics, specifically Mean Time to Respond (MTTR).
Eliminating Alert Fatigue: By filtering out thousands of low-quality alerts and presenting only confirmed verdicts, analysts stop drowning in noise and focus solely on active threats.
Skill-Gap Bridging: Junior analysts often struggle to interpret raw logs. Decision-Ready Verdicts provide expert-level conclusions, enabling them to execute sophisticated responses without requiring deep forensic expertise.
Automated Response Triggering: Because these verdicts are high-confidence, they can be safely used to trigger automated playbooks (SOAR) without fear of accidentally blocking legitimate business operations.
How Decision-Ready Verdicts are Generated
Creating a decision-ready verdict requires a sophisticated backend process that mimics the workflow of a human hunter.
Ingestion & Normalization: Collecting raw telemetry from endpoints, networks, and clouds.
Correlation: Linking disparate events (e.g., a login failure and a file download) to see the broader attack sequence.
Enrichment: Adding external intelligence (threat feeds, reputation scores) to validate indicators.
Expert Validation: In many Managed Detection and Response (MDR) models, a human threat hunter reviews the automated findings to confirm the verdict before sending it to the client.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between an alert and a decision-ready verdict? An alert is a raw notification that requires investigation (e.g., "Suspicious PowerShell executed"). A verdict is a concluded investigation (e.g., "Malicious Emotet infection confirmed; host isolation required").
Do decision-ready verdicts replace human analysts? No. They replace the repetitive triage work performed by analysts. This frees up humans to focus on complex threat hunting, strategy, and incident recovery.
Can AI alone generate decision-ready verdicts? AI is increasingly capable, but "Decision-Ready" often implies a level of certainty that currently requires either highly tuned models or human verification to avoid business-disrupting false positives.
Why are decision-ready verdicts critical for MDR? MDR (Managed Detection and Response) providers use them to prove value. Clients do not want to pay for "alerts"; they pay for "answers." Providing decision-ready verdicts allows MDRs to act as a true extension of the client's team.
ThreatNG and Decision-Ready Verdicts
ThreatNG serves as a critical validation engine that transforms raw security alerts into Decision-Ready Verdicts. By automating external reconnaissance and multidimensional threat assessment, ThreatNG provides the "Definitive Proof" required to bypass manual triage. It supplies the missing external context—determining whether an alert is a true positive, a false positive, or a critical business risk—enabling security teams and automated platforms to remediate immediately.
External Discovery for Verdict Scoping
A primary obstacle to decision-ready verdicts is asset uncertainty. ThreatNG’s External Discovery engine eliminates this ambiguity by mapping the organization's entire digital lineage using recursive discovery.
Asset Attribution and Validation: When an internal tool flags an anomaly on an unknown IP address, ThreatNG’s discovery engine can immediately confirm if that IP is a legitimate "Shadow IT" asset belonging to the organization or a hostile external entity. By recursively traversing domains, subdomains, and cloud infrastructure, it validates the asset's ownership. This allows the system to instantly classify the verdict as "Internal Policy Violation" rather than "External Attack," enabling the correct automated response.
Supply Chain Identification: ThreatNG identifies third-party connections and dependencies. If a detection system flags suspicious traffic to a vendor, ThreatNG confirms the vendor's identity. This converts a vague "Suspicious Outbound Traffic" alert into a specific "Unsanctioned Vendor Data Transfer" verdict, enabling immediate policy-based blocking.
External Assessment for Multi-Dimensional Confirmation
To render a verdict "Decision-Ready," technical data must be corroborated with context. ThreatNG’s Assessment Engine aggregates data from a diverse set of resources—domain, technical, reputation, business, financial, legal, and dark web—to provide high-fidelity confirmation.
Correlating Technical and Reputational Evidence: ThreatNG assesses external entities by combining Technical Resources (e.g., checking for open ports or valid certificates) with Reputation Resources (e.g., social chatter, blacklist status).
Example: If a firewall blocks a connection from an external domain, ThreatNG assesses the domain. If the assessment shows the domain has a "High Risk" reputation and technical flaws consistent with a Command and Control (C2) server, the verdict is upgraded to "Confirmed C2 Activity." This eliminates the need for an analyst to manually check reputation engines.
Validating Business and Legal Risk: ThreatNG uniquely incorporates Business, Financial, and Legal Resources into the verdict.
Example: A vulnerability scanner identifies unpatched software from a specific third-party provider. ThreatNG’s assessment indicates that the provider is facing bankruptcy (Financial Resource) and is engaged in active litigation (Legal Resource). This context transforms a standard "Patch Required" alert into a "Vendor Viability Crisis" verdict. The decision becomes "Replace Vendor" rather than "Wait for Patch" because the assessment indicates the vendor is unlikely to provide security updates.
Investigation Modules for Evidence-Based Verdicts
ThreatNG’s investigation modules generate the forensic proof required to support a verdict, allowing analysts to make decisions without conducting dangerous manual research.
Sanitized Dark Web Investigations: The platform includes a specific module for accessing Dark Web Resources safely. It creates a navigable, sanitized copy of dark websites, removing malicious elements and partially obscuring sensitive images based on reference comparisons.
Example: An intelligence feed suggests a database has been leaked. ThreatNG provides a sanitized, safe-to-view screenshot of the dark web listing that proves the data is legitimate. This visual evidence makes the verdict "Confirmed Data Breach" undeniable, triggering immediate incident response protocols without risking infection from the dark web site.
Recursive Attribute Extraction: ThreatNG supports Guided Investigations, allowing users to extract specific attributes (e.g., a registrant's email or a logo) from an assessment and recursively retrieve additional information.
Example: During an investigation into a phishing site, an analyst extracts the logo used on the page. ThreatNG compares this image to a reference image to confirm unauthorized use. It then pivots to find other domains registered by the same email address. This generates a "Confirmed Phishing Campaign" verdict that includes a list of all related attacker infrastructure, enabling a single, decisive blocklist update.
Intelligence Repositories for Contextual Enrichment
ThreatNG acts as a centralized knowledge base that enriches verdicts with historical and categorical data.
Knowledge Base Integration: The platform correlates technical findings with a comprehensive knowledge base. This ensures that verdicts are not just technical codes but include business-readable explanations of the risk.
Archived Data Access: ThreatNG can retrieve historical data regarding domains and web pages. This allows the system to provide a verdict on "Past Compromise" even if the threat is currently inactive, ensuring that historical gaps are closed.
Continuous Monitoring for Real-Time Verdict Validity
A verdict is only valid if it reflects the current reality. ThreatNG’s Continuous Monitoring capabilities ensure that decision-readiness is maintained dynamically.
Real-Time Status Updates: The system continuously monitors the digital presence of the organization and its third parties. If a trusted vendor’s reputation score drops suddenly due to a new breach, ThreatNG updates the risk metrics immediately.
Automated Triggers: When a monitored metric (e.g., Reputation Score) crosses a specific threshold, ThreatNG can trigger an updated verdict. This ensures that a "Safe" verdict from yesterday is automatically flipped to "Malicious" today if the context changes, preventing security teams from relying on stale data.
Reporting
ThreatNG consolidates evidence into Assessment Reports that serve as the "Verdict Record."
Configurable Reporting Categories: Users can configure reports to highlight specific data points (e.g., only Dark Web and Legal findings) relevant to the decision at hand. This removes noise and presents only the data needed to support the verdict.
Risk Metrics: The platform calculates specific risk scores (0-100%) that serve as a numerical verdict. High-confidence scores enable automated decision-making in downstream systems.
Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG provides the high-fidelity intelligence that empowers other security platforms to execute decisions autonomously.
Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) ThreatNG enables "No-Touch" playbooks.
Cooperation: SOAR platforms often pause for human input because they lack definitive proof. ThreatNG acts as the automated arbiter. A SOAR playbook queries ThreatNG regarding a suspicious URL. ThreatNG returns a verdict based on its multi-dimensional assessment (Dark Web + Reputation + Technical). If the verdict is "Malicious," the SOAR platform automatically blocks the URL and closes the ticket without human intervention.
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) ThreatNG accelerates the "Time-to-Verdict."
Cooperation: MDR analysts use ThreatNG to validate alerts generated by Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) tools. Instead of manually visiting a suspicious website or checking multiple OSINT sources, the analyst views the ThreatNG assessment. This instant validation enables the MDR team to issue a Decision-Ready Verdict to their client within minutes, significantly reducing Mean Time to Respond (MTTR).
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) ThreatNG reduces false positive noise.
Cooperation: ThreatNG feeds confirmed intelligence (e.g., "Verified Phishing Domains," "Compromised Vendor IPs") into the SIEM. This enrichment enables the SIEM to suppress low-confidence alerts and prioritize those that align with ThreatNG’s high-fidelity findings, ensuring the SOC team focuses only on alerts ready for decision.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does ThreatNG ensure the accuracy of its verdicts? ThreatNG uses a multi-sourced approach. It does not rely on a single data point; it triangulates the verdict using technical data, reputation scores, and business context (legal/financial). This cross-validation minimizes false positives.
Can ThreatNG provide verdicts on offline threats? Yes. Through its Archived Web Page analysis and Dark Web monitoring, ThreatNG can provide verdicts on threats that have been taken offline or are operating covertly, such as historical data leaks or past defacements.
Does ThreatNG require manual analysis to generate a verdict? No. While it supports manual investigation, its External Discovery and Assessment Engines are designed to run autonomously, generating risk metrics and reports that serve as automated verdicts for integration with other tools.
