Integrating Threat Intelligence with Rapid7 InsightConnect (SOAR)

Introduction

Cybersecurity teams today face a constant wave of evolving threats across the open, deep, and dark web. Modern threat intelligence platforms, powered by AI, continuously monitor these sources to identify emerging Indicators of Compromise (IOCs), leaked credentials, exposed assets, and detailed threat reports.

By integrating threat intelligence platform with Rapid7 InsightConnect, organizations can automate threat intelligence ingestion, detection, and enrichment across their security ecosystem. This integration improves threat visibility, enhances SOC efficiency, and significantly reduces manual effort by leveraging STIX-formatted CTI feeds that can be parsed, correlated, and acted upon automatically.

Key Takeaway

Reduced Alert Fatigue : Threat intelligence is used to prioritize incidents, enabling security teams to focus on the most critical and high-risk threats.

Faster Response Times : Automation through InsightConnect allows rapid and consistent response to threats that would otherwise require time-consuming manual correlation and investigation.

Comprehensive Visibility : The combined solution provides coverage across the entire digital estate, including network, email, endpoints, and cloud environments, while correlating internal anomalies with the external threat landscape.

What Is Threat Intelligence?

Threat intelligence platforms aggregate data from diverse sources including open web, deep and dark web, telemetry feeds, breach datasets, malware repositories, and vulnerability intelligence and enrich that data with analysis, confidence scoring, and adversary context. This transforms raw observables (IPs, domains, hashes, CVEs) into actionable intelligence aligned to real-world threats.

As a security product, threat intelligence typically provides:

• Structured, machine-consumable data (API, STIX/TAXII)
• Human-readable context (reports, threat actor profiles, campaign analysis)

When integrated into tools like Rapid7 InsightIDR and orchestrated via Rapid7 InsightConnect, threat intelligence becomes an operational force multiplier - guiding detection, accelerating response, and reducing uncertainty during investigations.

‍Key Features of the Threat Intelligence Platform

1. Improved Threat Prioritization

Threat intelligence helps SOC teams distinguish between background noise and real risk. By applying external context, such as active exploitation, threat-actor intent, or campaign relevance, teams can prioritize alerts and vulnerabilities that are most likely to impact their environment.

2. Faster and More Confident Incident Response

Enriched alerts reduce investigation time by answering critical questions early:

• Is this IOC associated with a known threat actor?
• Is it actively exploited?
• Has it been observed in recent campaigns?

This enables analysts to move from detection to containment with greater confidence and consistency.

3. Proactive Defense and Threat Hunting

Rather than waiting for alerts, threat intelligence supports proactive threat hunting. SOC teams can search internal telemetry for known malicious infrastructure or emerging indicators, identifying compromises earlier in the attack lifecycle.

4. Reduced Analyst Fatigue

By filtering and contextualizing external signals, threat intelligence reduces false positives and repetitive manual research. Analysts spend less time validating alerts and more time responding to confirmed threats.

Used effectively, threat intelligence bridges the gap between tactical detection and strategic security planning.

What Is Rapid7 InsightConnect?

Rapid7 InsightConnect is a security automation and orchestration platform designed to streamline security operations. It enables security teams to connect tools, systems, and workflows to reduce manual workloads and improve incident response efficiency.

Key Features of Rapid7 InsightConnect

• Pre-built integrations with widely used security platforms
• Drag-and-drop workflow builder for automation
• Real-time orchestration of alerts and investigations
• Collaboration tools for SOC and incident response teams

Integrating Threat Intelligence with Rapid7 InsightConnect

Integrating threat intelligence platform with Rapid7 InsightConnect enables automated ingestion of external threat data directly into InsightConnect workflows. This streamlines threat validation, enrichment, and response, allowing SOC teams to operate with greater speed, accuracy, and consistency.

High-Level Installation Steps

1. Download the threat intelligence plugin from Rapid7 Extensions.
2. Configure the plugin using the required credentials such as base URL, account ID, client ID, and client secret.
3. Set up workflow triggers to retrieve IOCs, leaked records, and cyberfeeds for continuous monitoring.

Key Use Cases for Threat Intelligence and InsightConnect Integration

1. SOC Threat Hunting Automation

Security teams can schedule IOC feeds to run at defined intervals. The integration automatically delivers results into InsightConnect workflows, enabling proactive and automated threat hunting.

2. Automated Alert Enrichment and Correlation

When suspicious cyber observables are detected, SOC analysts can quickly determine whether internal assets or related entities are impacted and automatically trigger appropriate remediation actions.

3. Leaked Credential Monitoring

By integrating leaked credential feeds, security teams can automatically check corporate accounts against newly disclosed breaches. The workflow identifies potentially compromised accounts and triggers actions such as alert generation, password resets, or access revocation to reduce exposure risk.

4. Cyberfeeds-Driven Vulnerability Prioritization

When a vulnerability is identified and its CVE appears in cyberfeeds, SOC analysts can assess its relevance to internal assets, evaluate exploitation likelihood, prioritize remediation efforts, and trigger automated alerts or workflows.

Conclusion

Integrating threat intelligence platform from a security product company with Rapid7 InsightConnect enables faster and smarter threat response. Through automated workflows, SOC teams can transition from reactive operations to proactive security, reducing manual effort while improving detection accuracy and response speed.

FAQ

1. What is threat intelligence integration with Rapid7 InsightConnect?

Threat intelligence integration with Rapid7 InsightConnect connects external cyber threat data feeds with SOAR workflows to automate ingestion, enrichment, correlation, and response. This allows SOC teams to automatically act on Indicators of Compromise (IOCs), leaked credentials, and vulnerabilities without manual intervention.

2. How does threat intelligence improve SOC operations?

Threat intelligence improves SOC operations by prioritizing real threats, enriching alerts with context, reducing false positives, and enabling faster incident response. It helps analysts focus on high-risk threats instead of spending time validating alerts manually.

3. What are the benefits of integrating threat intelligence with SOAR platforms?

Integrating threat intelligence with SOAR platforms like Rapid7 InsightConnect delivers:

• Automated threat ingestion and enrichment
• Faster incident detection and response
• Reduced alert fatigue
• Better threat prioritization
• Continuous monitoring across environments

4. How does Rapid7 InsightConnect automate threat response?

Rapid7 InsightConnect uses automation workflows to collect threat data, enrich alerts, correlate IOCs, and trigger actions such as blocking IPs, resetting passwords, and creating tickets. This reduces manual workload and improves response speed.

5. What types of threat intelligence data can be integrated into InsightConnect?

Security teams can integrate:

• Indicators of Compromise (IPs, domains, hashes)
• Leaked credential datasets
• Threat actor reports
• Vulnerability intelligence and CVEs
• Deep and dark web monitoring data

6. How does threat intelligence help in reducing alert fatigue?

Threat intelligence adds context such as exploitation status, threat actor activity, and campaign relevance. This helps filter low-risk alerts and allows analysts to focus on verified threats, significantly reducing alert fatigue.

7. Can threat intelligence support proactive threat hunting?

Yes. Threat intelligence enables proactive threat hunting by allowing SOC teams to search internal systems for known malicious indicators and emerging threats before an incident occurs.

8. What role does STIX/TAXII play in threat intelligence integration?

STIX and TAXII standards allow structured, machine-readable threat intelligence to be shared across platforms. This enables Rapid7 InsightConnect to automatically parse and process threat data feeds for automation workflows.

9. How does integration help with leaked credential monitoring?

When leaked credential feeds are integrated, InsightConnect can automatically identify compromised accounts, trigger alerts, initiate password resets, and enforce access controls to reduce risk.

10. Why is threat intelligence important for vulnerability prioritization?

Threat intelligence helps security teams identify which vulnerabilities are actively exploited in the wild. This allows SOC teams to prioritize patching based on real-world risk instead of generic severity scores.