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OpenCTI for National Security Agencies: 5 Use Cases

Jun 6, 2025 • 5 min read

Marie Remondiere

Senior Marketing Manager

Security agencies face a uniquely challenging cybersecurity landscape. From defending critical infrastructure against state-sponsored espionage to quickly responding to cybercrime campaigns, the stakes are high and the threats complex.

While the volume of cyber threat data can be overwhelming, turning it into meaningful, actionable intelligence is essential. That’s where they are turning to Filigran, with OpenCTI Enterprise Edition (EE) fast becoming platform of choice for threat management.

Here we provide you five different ways for the security agencies to leverage OpenCTI EE to protect national interests and improve their cyber defenses:

Automating Threat Sharing for National CERTs

When national-level threats emerge, CERTs must act swiftly and share threat intelligence across sectors to mitigate risks in real time. OpenCTI EE automates this process, ensuring fast and coordinated responses.

CERT teams use platforms like OpenCTI to automatically share cyber threat indicators (e.g., malicious IPs, phishing domains) with other national and international cybersecurity teams.

For example, when a phishing campaign targets government employees, the national CERT can immediately shares details with banks, telecom providers, and other essential services to block the threat.

Leveraging Intelligence for Cybercrime Investigations

Cybercrime investigations demand not only accurate intelligence but also rapid access to contextual data about threat actors, their tactics, and infrastructure. OpenCTI EE empowers law enforcement agencies to act swiftly by centralizing threat intelligence and enabling real-time collaboration across jurisdictions and sectors.

Law enforcement units use OpenCTI EE to correlate indicators of compromise (IOCs) with known threat actor profiles, uncover links between seemingly unrelated incidents, and prioritize actions based on threat severity and attribution confidence. The platform’s structured knowledge graph and STIX-based data model allow investigators to pivot quickly from a phishing domain to the malware used, and then to the actor behind the campaign.

For example, if a cyber unit detects a phishing campaign targeting local businesses, OpenCTI EE helps them instantly retrieve related threat actor profiles, past campaigns, and associated infrastructure. This enables them to coordinate with banks and ISPs to block malicious domains, alert potential victims, and trace the perpetrators before further damage occurs.

By integrating with third-party tools and enabling secure, role-based access, OpenCTI EE ensures that intelligence is disseminated efficiently and only to those who need it—accelerating investigations and improving outcomes.

OpenCTI Dashboard

Managing Classified Information Securely

Defense organizations must analyze threats without compromising national secrets. OpenCTI EE enables intelligence workflows on air-gapped systems, supporting multiple classification levels.

Defense agencies handle sensitive intelligence that must be carefully managed. They use air-gapped networks, completely isolated from the internet to analyze possible threats, protect classified data while creating and sharing intelligence at different security levels. This approach enables cyber units to prevent leaks and OpenCTI EE fully supports this.

Sharing Intelligence with Strategic Partners

While national CERTs and law enforcement agencies focus on broad threat mitigation and criminal investigations, intelligence agencies often need to share highly sensitive threat data with a select group of trusted partners. OpenCTI EE enables this with fine-grained access controls and multi-organization support, ensuring that only the right people see the right data.

These partners may include:

  • Critical infrastructure operators (e.g., energy, transportation, healthcare)
  • Private-sector cybersecurity teams in finance, telecom, and defense industries
  • International allies and intelligence-sharing alliances
  • Sector-specific ISACs (Information Sharing and Analysis Centers)
  • Technology vendors providing detection, response, or enrichment services
OpenCTI EE supports secure, role-based sharing across these diverse stakeholders.

For example, a national intelligence agency might identify a sophisticated intrusion set targeting energy grids. Using OpenCTI EE, they can share a classified report with internal defense units, while simultaneously distributing a declassified version to energy providers and their ISAC to help them harden defenses—without exposing sensitive sources or methods.

This selective sharing model ensures that intelligence is actionable and relevant to each partner, while maintaining operational security and compliance with national policies.

Strengthening Cyber Defense through collaboration

In today’s interconnected digital environment, cyber threats rarely target organizations in isolation. Government agencies, critical infrastructure operators, and private-sector partners are all part of a shared ecosystem vulnerable to coordinated attacks. To effectively defend national interests, real-time and secure intelligence sharing across agencies and industries is crucial.

OpenCTI EE enables scalable, bi-directional sharing of threat intelligence, allowing multiple stakeholders – including National Cyber Security Agencies, CERTs, law enforcement, and private sector partners – to collaborate seamlessly.

This collaboration accelerates the identification of emerging threats, amplifies early warning capabilities, and fosters a united response that reduces risk across the board.

With features like native data segregation and flexible access control, OpenCTI EE ensures that sensitive information is shared only with authorized parties while still maximizing the collective visibility needed to anticipate and neutralize threats. By breaking down silos, agencies can leverage the combined knowledge of the broader cybersecurity community, improving situational awareness and reinforcing national resilience.

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