Why Threat Hunting Should Be Part of Every Security Program

Summary

Robert Lackey argues that threat hunting is an essential habit for mature security programmes because automated detection alone will miss many adversary activities. Threat hunting is framed as a mindset — a proactive, investigative approach that assumes something may already be wrong and seeks evidence by interrogating logs, behaviours and contexts. The article recommends simulation, building baselines, focused data collection and regular practice to sharpen instincts and improve detection over time.

Key Points

Threat hunting is a mindset, not just a job title: assume something might be wrong and look for it.
Simulating attacks in a lab (for example credential dumping) helps teams learn how malicious behaviour appears in their data.
Build baselines of normal activity (auth logs, DNS, process trees) to make anomalies easier to spot.
Investigate anomalies with curiosity — ask who, when, what else happened and expand searches across data sources.
Quality and accessibility of data (endpoints, network, auth, DNS) matter more than sheer volume for effective hunting.
Treat hunting like exercise: repeat it regularly to build skill, speed and institutional knowledge.

Content Summary

The piece explains why detection tools and alerts are insufficient on their own — attackers sometimes slip past them. Threat hunting fills that gap by encouraging proactive questioning and forensic-style examination of logs and events. Practical advice includes running controlled attacks in a lab to see which signals appear, starting hunting efforts by focusing on a single log type to establish a baseline, and documenting findings. Investigations may yield new detection rules or alerts, and even non-malicious anomalies teach the team about their environment. Ultimately, regular practice ingrains the habit and improves an organisation’s ability to spot threats earlier.

Context and Relevance

As adversaries grow more sophisticated and automated tools produce noise and false negatives, organisations need human-led processes to find what automated detection misses. Threat hunting complements EDR, SIEM and XDR by using human curiosity and context to find subtle or novel behaviours. This approach aligns with current SOC trends emphasizing hybrid human–machine detection, proactive threat intel integration and improving mean time to detect. For security teams seeking to harden their posture, the article provides pragmatic steps to get started and scale hunting practices.

Author style

Punchy — the author is direct and pragmatic. If this matters to your SOC, read the practical tips closely: simulation, baselines and disciplined data collection are the low-effort, high-value moves that actually improve detection over time.

Why should I read this?

If you run or work in a security team and you rely mostly on alerts, this is a quick reality check. It tells you, plainly, that machines alone won’t catch everything and gives simple, actionable steps to start hunting properly. Short, no-nonsense and useful — consider this the nudge your SOC probably needs to start practising threat hunts regularly.