What is Threat Intelligence in Cybersecurity?

**Executive summary:** This 2025 overview explains cyber threat intelligence as the collection, analysis, and application of contextualized threat data to enable proactive defence; it outlines types (strategic, operational, tactical), the threat intelligence lifecycle (direction, collection, processing, analysis, production, dissemination, feedback), common collection methods (OSINT, dark web monitoring, honeypots, network telemetry), tooling (TIPs, SIEM integration, malware analysis, vulnerability intelligence), best practices for implementation, and future trends including AI integration, supply chain intelligence, and automation—while referencing SecurityScorecard’s threat intelligence solutions.