CISOs and CSOs often view threat intelligence reports as valuable resources, but these reports’ impact on longer-term strategic decision-making is strangely limited. According to the 2026 SANS Cyber Threat Intelligence Survey, only 26% of CISOs say that threat intel significantly influences their decisions, even though 91% rate it as valuable or extremely valuable.
You can see this most clearly when it’s time to refresh the security strategy for the year ahead. Reports may be widely read when they come out, but they’re filed and forgotten about when planning comes around. Security priorities end up based on last year’s incidents, various audit findings, and whatever was questioned most by the board.
Fixing that takes some discipline, but not a complicated process. Let’s take a look at how to identify the trends that apply to your organisation, turn them into a short list of priorities, include the human layer, and keep the list current as new reports appear.
Why Threat Intelligence Reports Should Shape Your 2027 Plan
Although security planning looks forward to the year ahead, it’s usually shaped by what’s in the rearview mirror. Security leaders are influenced by last year’s incidents and previous audit findings. Security strategy remains on the back foot, fighting the last war instead of preparing for the next one.
When the signals are fresh, threat intelligence shifts the balance to the present. These reports show what attackers are doing now, which TTPs are in ascendance, and what’s actually getting through other organisations’ defences.
A good threat intel report reveals trends in the bigger picture. It shows which types of social engineering lures are working, which tools are used the most, and which controls are being targeted. These patterns only appear when traced across many organisations. Security teams can’t spot them from internal reports alone.
Different reports cover different areas of the cybersecurity landscape, so don’t base your strategy on just one. Use reports that give a range of vantage points. For example, endpoint and incident response reports zoom in on trends around intrusions, while email security companies report about the scams and traps that get to people’s inboxes and trick them into clicking. Surveys highlight the concerns that keep other security leaders awake at night, delivering wisdom that coalesces at scale.
Your company’s own data is a threat intel source as well. SOC alerts, incident records, vulnerability scans, phishing simulation results, and reported emails are all indicators of your organisation’s security situation. Use them together with external reports to paint a balanced picture of the wider security landscape, alongside your own gravest threats.
Pulling Out The Trends That Apply To Your Organisation
The challenge when using threat intelligence reports is to filter out what’s relevant. There’s a risk you’ll get overwhelmed by details that aren’t applicable to your company and miss the wood for the trees, so put every trend through a quick relevance check before you act on it.
Check that the report matches your industry, region, and size. For example, Hoxhunt’s latest threat intelligence report discovered that voicemail-themed and callback phishing showed up more in North America, while impersonations of financial institutions stood out in Europe. US-based companies should draw different conclusions than European ones from the same report.
Verify that a given report relates to tools and platforms you actually use, and whether the concerns it raises are already covered by a trusted control. It’s possible for a security trend to be serious, but it still might not be a real issue for your organisation.
Give some attention to the data itself. Look at where it comes from and what the organisation behind it could see that is hidden from you. For example, the Hoxhunt report is based on user-reported emails, so it reflects what reaches employees and not everything that’s sent by attackers. Each report looks through its own lens, so know which one you’re looking through before you act on it.
Turning Findings Into A Short List Of Security Priorities
Once you’ve pulled the primary trends, you can build security priorities upon them. A shortlist of three to five priorities for the upcoming year is quite enough, otherwise it’ll be too long and no one will pay it any attention, let alone act upon it.
Tie priorities to specific trends, with each citing the trend, the gap it exposes in your environments, and which team owns it. Add an internal metric to measure progress, like patch times, MFA coverage, or report rates and time to report. Something like this:
- Incident response and breaches. A report shows that attackers are entering through known unpatched vulnerabilities. The priority may be to shorten how long it takes to patch vulnerabilities on exposed assets
- Identity and endpoints. A report reveals that malicious actors are evading MFA by stealing session tokens. The priority might be to require high-risk roles like admins to change to phishing-resistant MFA
- Email and human risk. A report highlights that phishing attacks that mimic routine workflows are getting past filters and tricking employees. The priority could be to focus training on these types of lures
- Supply chain and third-party risk. A report shows that many breaches originate at suppliers. The priority could be to tighten vendor access evaluations and how partners connect to your systems
The SANS Institute found that security operations is already the leading use case for threat intel, cited by 71% of teams. Threat intelligence needs to inform planning as well.
Planning For The Human Layer: Phishing And Social Engineering
Building security planning on threat intelligence reports can lead to overly heavy emphasis on technical controls that sideline the human element. But security depends at least as much on ensuring that people make the right decisions when faced with threats.
Phishing attacks are a prime example. Hoxhunt reports that simulations which looked like routine work, such as file shares, calendar invites and HR salary or bonus messages, hoodwinked employees most often. People were more likely to report simulated lures that look like highly urgent security alerts. It also found that GenAI made phishing emails much more polished and grammatically correct.
This has direct implications for security planning. It shows that it’s more effective to train employees to pause and verify routine email requests than to look for typos and incorrect phrasing. Security teams will do better to pick simulation and training themes based on what the reports say is getting through, not from a generic calendar. Track report rate and time to report alongside click rate, for richer insights.
Your own email reporting trends represent a threat intel source in their own right. Employees can be your early warning system about changes to phishing TTPs, showing which lures get past your filter and trick recipients. Hoxhunt recommends turning new threat indicators into detections and training within two to four weeks, so that your human layer remains up to date.
Revisiting Your Priorities As New Reports Come Out
It’s not enough to use threat intel for once-yearly planning. Threats change fast. For example, you might build your phishing training on a technique that spiked in a recent report, but the next report shows that volume has dropped and you need to adjust training tactics.
Threat intelligence reports come out throughout the year, some monthly or quarterly, so match your reviews to that kind of tempo, with a named owner who’ll take responsibility. Do check what the reports say against your own data, like SOC and employees’ phishing reports. But don’t automatically dismiss a trend that doesn’t appear internally. It might not be relevant to you, but it could be that it just hasn’t shown up yet.
Consider each priority through the prism of the latest reporting. Ask if new reports confirm or contradict it, and whether this priority should be changed or retired. Keep a one-line record of each decision and the reason behind it, so that next year’s plan has a baseline to build upon instead of starting from scratch.
Sometimes a review is needed between quarters. Specify what should trigger an unscheduled review: it might be a major new threat intel report or government or regulatory body advice, an alarming incident at a similar organisation, or new attack techniques that you see in your environment. This way, your priorities remain in tune with current threat intelligence trends.
Security leaders already rely on threat intelligence for daily security operations. Planning deserves the same treatment. External reports show the trends you’d otherwise miss, your internal data shows what’s actually hitting your organisation, and a quarterly review keeps both current.
Before you sign off your 2027 plan, run one last test. Every priority on it should trace back to a trend in a report or in your own data. If one can’t, ask why it’s there. If a major trend from the reports isn’t on the list, ask why not.
