External threat intelligence provides insight into events outside your organization, helping you identify potential threats before they escalate and impact your operations.

In the past, cybersecurity was mostly about building high walls around your company’s internal network. But today, the digital world is wide open. Hackers don’t always try to “break in” through the front door anymore; they find forgotten doors on the outside, buy stolen keys on the Dark Web, or target your employees where they are most vulnerable. 

This is why External Threat Intelligence (ETI) has become vital. It is no longer enough to watch what is happening inside your network; you must see what is happening outside it to identify threats before they escalate. 

How it Works: Proactive Defense in Action 

To stay ahead of modern criminals, organizations need a strategy that monitors the entire digital landscape—the open web, social media, Telegram, and the Darknet. Effective ETI unifies three critical areas into a single proactive view: 

• External Attack Surface Management (EASM): This acts like a digital scout, providing real-time visibility into all internet-facing assets. It identifies misconfigured servers or weak authentication points—the “open windows” that ransomware actors exploit to gain a foothold. 

• Compromised Credential Intelligence: One of the most common ways hackers infiltrate a system is by using stolen passwords. A strong ETI strategy monitors Telegram and Darknet markets for employee credentials that have been leaked or harvested by “infostealers,” allowing you to reset them before they are used for unauthorized access. 

• Digital Risk Protection (DRP): This tracks “Access Brokers”—criminals who specialize in breaking into networks and then selling that access to ransomware gangs. By identifying these sales ads early, you can block malicious infrastructure and stop an attack before encryption takes place. 

The Power of AI in Security 

The biggest challenge for security teams today is “information overload”. Organizations often struggle with too many alerts, false positives, and manual data sorting that drains resources. 

Modern ETI solutions use Generative AI to solve this. AI-driven intelligence can prioritize, filter, and classify data with high accuracy. This allows security teams to focus on immediate and significant threats, leading to much faster risk assessments and more efficient operations. 

The European Context: NIS2 and Beyond 

For European businesses, especially those in critical infrastructure, healthcare, or finance, ETI is becoming a legal necessity. New regulatory standards require companies to have a deep understanding of their vulnerabilities and external risks. 

Relying on basic tools is no longer enough when vulnerability exploitation surged by 180% in the 2024 report and jumped another 34% in 2025, now making it a primary way for hackers to enter networks. 

How CREAPLUS Can Help You Take Control 

Implementing a professional External Threat Intelligence strategy requires the right blend of advanced technology and human expertise. At CREAPLUS, we help organizations navigate this complex landscape to strengthen their cyber resilience. 

Depending on your organization’s specific needs, we suggest two world-class platforms: 

• Cognyte Luminar: An ideal “all-in-one” solution for organizations that need automated, AI-driven visibility across their attack surface and digital risks. It is perfect for rapidly identifying and scoring risks to help teams act up to 3 times faster. 

• Kela: A powerhouse for deeper investigations into the cybercrime underground. Kela is particularly effective at tracking “Initial Access Brokers” and providing detailed threat actor profiling, allowing you to see your organization exactly as an attacker sees it. 

Our CREAPLUS experts can support you with: 

• ETI Strategy & Consulting: We help you choose between platforms like Luminar and Kela and build a dedicated monitoring plan. 

• Platform Implementation: We ensure these tools are set up to provide real-time, automated alerts tailored specifically to your organization. 

• Advanced Threat Mitigation: When a threat is detected—whether it’s a credential leak or a ransomware broker—we help your team integrate these insights into your SIEM or IAM solutions for an automatic response. 

Don’t wait for a threat to reach your internal network. Reach out to the CREAPLUS team today to gain the external visibility you need to stay safe.