Transparent Risk Intelligence
Transparent Risk Intelligence is a cybersecurity approach that delivers risk assessments, alerts, and scores, along with the raw evidence, data lineage, and analytical logic used to derive them. Unlike "black box" intelligence, which produces opaque verdicts (e.g., a simple "High Risk" label) without explanation, transparent intelligence provides the "who, what, where, and why" behind every finding.
This methodology treats risk data as an auditable trail. It empowers security teams to verify the accuracy of an alert, understand the specific factors contributing to a risk score, and trace intelligence back to its primary source—whether that is a dark web listing, a technical vulnerability scan, or a public legal filing.
The Three Pillars of Transparent Intelligence
For risk intelligence to be considered transparent, it must satisfy three core criteria regarding visibility and proof.
1. Source Attribution
Transparent intelligence explicitly identifies where the data originated. It does not hide behind generic labels like "proprietary feed." Instead, it cites the specific origin, such as:
Technical Sources: Identifying the specific IP address, port, or banner response that triggered a vulnerability alert.
Open Sources: Linking to the specific public repository, code commit, or social media post where data was exposed.
Dark Web Sources: Providing the specific marketplace name, vendor ID, or forum thread where credentials were sold.
2. Visible Scoring Logic
Risk scores are meaningless if the recipient does not know how they are calculated. Transparent Risk Intelligence breaks down the equation. It explains that a "Critical" rating is the result of specific weighted factors, such as:
Severity: The CVSS score of the vulnerability.
Exploitability: Evidence of active exploitation in the wild.
Asset Value: The criticality of the server hosting the vulnerability.
Business Context: The financial or reputational impact of a potential breach.
3. Verifiable Evidence
The defining feature of transparency is the inclusion of artifacts. The intelligence feed includes the "proof of work" necessary for an analyst to validate the finding without running a separate investigation. This includes:
Screenshots of the compromised application.
Raw HTML or code snippets from the defaced website.
Copies of the SSL certificate showing the expiration date.
The exact text of the leaked document.
The Problem with "Black Box" Intelligence
The cybersecurity industry has historically relied on "Black Box" tools—solutions that ingest data and output a conclusion without showing their work. This opacity creates significant operational challenges that Transparent Risk Intelligence aims to solve.
Trust Deficits: When a tool cries "Wolf!" (False Positive) and offers no explanation, analysts lose faith in the platform and begin ignoring alerts.
Analysis Paralysis: Without context, analysts must spend hours manually re-investigating the alert to understand if it is real, defeating the purpose of buying an automated tool.
Remediation Ambiguity: You cannot fix a "Score of 40." You can only fix specific misconfigurations. Opaque scores leave IT teams guessing what actions will actually improve security posture.
Operational Benefits of Transparency
Adopting a transparent model directly impacts the efficiency and effectiveness of the Security Operations Center (SOC) and leadership teams.
Accelerated Incident Response When an analyst receives an alert accompanied by source evidence (e.g., a packet capture or a dark web screenshot), they can immediately confirm the threat and move to containment. This significantly reduces the Mean Time to Resolve (MTTR) by eliminating the verification phase.
Defensible Decision Making Security leaders often have to justify budget requests or strategic pivots to the Board of Directors. Transparent intelligence allows the CISO to present irrefutable facts—"We need to upgrade this firewall because here is the log showing it failing"—rather than asking the Board to trust a proprietary algorithm they do not understand.
Improved Collaboration Transparency creates a common language between departments. When Security asks IT to patch a server, providing the transparent evidence (e.g., "Here is the outdated version number visible to the public") removes friction and proves the necessity of the request.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Transparent Risk Intelligence important for compliance? Auditors require evidence, not opinions. Transparent intelligence provides the logs, timestamps, and source documents needed to prove to an auditor that a specific control failed or was remediated, making the audit process faster and more accurate.
Does transparent intelligence expose proprietary secrets? No. Transparency refers to the output provided to the customer, not to the vendor's internal code. A vendor can explain why a risk was flagged (e.g., "We found this IP on a blocklist") without revealing the proprietary code used to scrape that blocklist.
How does this prevent false positives? It does not prevent them entirely, but it makes them immediately obvious. If a tool flags a "Phishing Site" but transparent evidence shows it is actually the company's marketing microsite, the analyst can spot the error in seconds and dismiss it rather than launch a full investigation.
Is this the same as Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)? Not exactly. OSINT is a type of data collection (using public sources). Transparent Risk Intelligence is a methodology for presenting that data. You can have opaque OSINT (black box) and proprietary intelligence that is transparent. The key is whether the user can see the evidence.
ThreatNG and Transparent Risk Intelligence
ThreatNG operationalizes Transparent Risk Intelligence as a "Glass Box" solution that eliminates opacity in the risk assessment process. Unlike traditional tools that output "Black Box" verdicts—such as generic risk scores or unexplained alerts—ThreatNG provides the raw data lineage, verifiable evidence, and granular logic behind every finding.
By exposing the primary sources of intelligence—from raw DNS records to sanitized dark web screenshots—ThreatNG empowers security teams to validate risks immediately, understand the root cause of every score, and make decisions based on auditable facts rather than proprietary assumptions.
External Discovery as the Transparent Inventory
Transparency begins with knowing what you own and how it was found. ThreatNG’s External Discovery engine provides the transparent lineage of the attack surface, ensuring that no asset appears on the inventory list without a clear explanation of its origin.
Lineage Mapping: ThreatNG does not simply present a list of IP addresses. It visualizes the connection path. It shows that a specific cloud bucket was discovered because it was referenced in the code of a subdomain linked to the primary corporate domain. This "Data Lineage" enables analysts to trace the discovery back to its source, confirming that the asset belongs to the organization and is not a false positive.
Shadow IT Attribution: When ThreatNG identifies unmanaged assets (Shadow IT), it provides technical attributes—such as registrar details, cloud provider signatures, and SSL issuer—that enable the security team to attribute the asset to a specific department or vendor. This transparency turns a generic "Unknown Asset" alert into a specific "Marketing Department Microsite" finding.
External Assessment for Explainable Scoring
The core of Transparent Risk Intelligence is explaining why a risk exists. ThreatNG’s Assessment Engine replaces vague risk ratings with detailed, evidence-backed justifications across multiple risk dimensions.
Technical Transparency (Technical Resources):
The Findings: Instead of simply flagging a server as "Insecure," ThreatNG details the specific configuration flaws.
Detailed Example: The assessment engine provides the raw banner grab showing "Apache 2.4.49," the specific CVE associated with that version, and the raw SSL certificate details showing it was self-signed and expired on a specific date. This allows engineers to verify the vulnerability by reviewing the raw technical evidence in the dashboard.
Business Risk Transparency (Financial & Legal Resources):
The Findings: ThreatNG validates business risks by citing public records.
Detailed Example: If a vendor is flagged as "High Risk," ThreatNG provides a transparent reason: it links to the specific Financial Resource showing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing or to the Legal Resource showing an active class-action lawsuit regarding data privacy. This transforms a subjective "Vendor Risk" score into an objective, fact-based alert supported by court documents.
Sentiment Transparency (Reputation Resources):
The Findings: ThreatNG explains reputational damage through specific data points.
Detailed Example: A low reputation score is supported by a list of specific spam blocklists (e.g., Spamhaus, SORBS) on which the organization's IP appears, along with the trend line of negative social media mentions.
Investigation Modules for Evidence Verification
ThreatNG’s investigation modules are the ultimate engine of transparency, allowing analysts to view primary-source artifacts securely. This capability eliminates the need to "trust" the tool and allows the analyst to "verify" the threat.
Sanitized Dark Web Evidence (Dark Web Resources):
The Transparency Mechanism: Many tools issue a text alert saying "Credentials Found." ThreatNG provides the visual proof.
Detailed Example: The Sanitized Dark Web module retrieves a navigable, sanitized snapshot of the actual dark web marketplace listing. The analyst can see the threat actor’s handle, the data price, the post date, and the provided sample data (e.g., a list of specific employee email addresses). This transparent evidence proves the breach is real and not a false alarm.
Historical State Verification (Archived Web Pages):
The Transparency Mechanism: To prove a past violation, analysts need to see the web's historical state.
Detailed Example: Using Archived Web Page investigation, ThreatNG retrieves the HTML source code of a website from a specific date in the past. This allows the analyst to verify that a sensitive PDF was linked on the homepage three months ago, providing irrefutable primary evidence for a compliance report or legal investigation.
Intelligence Repositories as the Audit Trail
ThreatNG’s Intelligence Repositories serve as the permanent library of transparent evidence.
Auditable History: The repositories store the raw data from every scan and assessment. This creates an immutable audit trail. If a regulator asks why a decision was made six months ago, the organization can pull the specific assessment report from the repository, showing the exact risk score and supporting evidence that existed at that time.
Continuous Monitoring for Real-Time Explainability
Transparent Risk Intelligence requires understanding change. ThreatNG’s Continuous Monitoring explains the trajectory of risk.
Drift Explanation: When a risk score changes, ThreatNG explains the delta. It does not just say "Score Dropped to 60." It says "Score Dropped to 60 because Port 3389 was opened on Asset X and the SPF record was deleted on Domain Y." This granular logging ensures that every shift in the security posture is attributable to a specific technical event.
Reporting
ThreatNG’s Reporting capabilities translate transparent data into defensible documentation.
Evidence-Based Reports: ThreatNG generates reports that are dense with facts—IP addresses, timestamps, CVE numbers, and legal case IDs. These reports serve as self-contained evidence packages that can be handed to auditors or board members to justify security investments without needing further explanation.
Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG acts as the "Transparency Engine" for the broader security stack, injecting evidence and context into other platforms to make their alerts more understandable and actionable.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) ThreatNG contextualizes logs.
Cooperation: SIEMs often generate cryptic alerts based on internal logs. ThreatNG provides the external context. When a SIEM flags an incoming connection, ThreatNG enriches that alert with transparent data: "This IP belongs to a known Bulletproof Hosting Provider (Evidence provided) and hosts a phishing kit (Screenshot provided)." This transparency enables the SIEM analyst to immediately understand the nature of the threat.
Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) Platforms ThreatNG provides the proof of compliance.
Cooperation: GRC platforms track whether controls are met. ThreatNG provides the evidence. Instead of a user manually checking a box saying "Encryption is Active," ThreatNG feeds the GRC platform the raw scan data showing the valid SSL certificate details. This makes the GRC platform a repository of verifiable facts rather than just user attestations.
Vendor Risk Management (VRM) Systems ThreatNG validates vendor questionnaires.
Cooperation: VRM systems collect self-reported data from vendors. ThreatNG works with these solutions by providing the objective "check." If a vendor claims "No Legal Issues" in the VRM portal, ThreatNG feeds the VRM system the conflicting Legal Resource finding (e.g., a lawsuit filing). This highlights the discrepancy, enabling the risk manager to confront the vendor with transparent evidence of the vendor's omission.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does ThreatNG prevent "Black Box" frustration? It prevents frustration by showing its work. Analysts never have to guess why a risk was flagged; they can simply click through to the technical or legal evidence that triggered the alert, validating the finding in seconds.
Can ThreatNG’s transparent data be used in court? Yes. Because ThreatNG relies on primary sources (such as archived web pages, public legal filings, and dark web screenshots), the evidence it gathers is often verifiable and admissible in legal or regulatory proceedings to establish due diligence or liability.
Does transparency make the tool harder to use? No. ThreatNG organizes this deep data into intuitive dashboards. Users see the high-level score first, but the "Transparent" evidence is always just one click away for those who need to dive deeper.
