Proofpoint Threat Intelligence

Proofpoint Threat Intelligence

Overview

Proofpoint Threat Intelligence provides contextual information about threat campaigns, threat families, and indicators of compromise (IOCs) observed across the Proofpoint network. This data enriches individual threat events from TAP with broader campaign context, attribution, and forensic evidence. It enables security analysts to understand not just what was blocked, but who is behind the attack and how it fits into a larger campaign.

Proofpoint processes billions of messages daily and correlates threats across its entire customer base, providing unique visibility into large-scale email threat campaigns.

Anti-triggers

• What hit your own tenant — this is Proofpoint's cross-customer intelligence: campaigns, families, and actors observed network-wide. A campaign returned here may never have targeted your organization. Your tenant's own events are proofpoint-tap.
• Evidence artifacts for one message — sandbox reports, pcaps, screenshots, and samples are proofpoint-forensics.
• Another vendor's intelligence feed — Mimecast's near-identically named skill is mimecast-threat-intelligence.

Key Concepts

Campaigns

A campaign is a coordinated set of threat activities sharing common infrastructure, payloads, or techniques. Proofpoint groups related threats into campaigns based on:

• Shared sending infrastructure
• Common payload signatures
• Similar lure themes and social engineering tactics
• Linked command-and-control infrastructure

Threat Families

Threat Actors

Proofpoint tracks named threat actors (e.g., TA505, TA542, TA577) that conduct persistent email-based campaigns. Actor profiles include:

• Known TTPs (tactics, techniques, procedures)
• Associated malware families
• Targeted industries and geographies
• Campaign frequency and sophistication level

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

Field Reference

Campaign Fields

Threat Indicator Fields

MCP Tools

Not available through this plugin

Everything here is a forward lookup: you arrive with an ID or a time window and get intelligence back. There is no way to arrive with a name or an indicator and search.

• Searching campaigns by criteria (actor, family, date). Campaign access is by ID only, and the IDs come from TAP events.
• Reverse IOC lookup — "which campaigns contain this hash". proofpoint_threat_get_iocs runs the other direction: campaign or time window in, indicators out. To answer an inbound IOC question, pull the IOC set for the window and match locally.
• Per-family or per-actor detail pages. proofpoint_threat_list_families lists families; there is no get-by-name. Actor names appear inside campaign output and have no tool of their own.

Common Workflows

Investigate a Campaign from TAP Event

1. From a TAP event, extract the campaign_id
2. Call proofpoint_threat_get_campaign with the campaign ID
3. Review the campaign description, actor attribution, and techniques
4. Call proofpoint_threat_get_iocs with the same campaign_id to get all IOCs for the campaign
5. Export IOCs to your SIEM or firewall blocklists
6. Check if other users in the organization were targeted by the same campaign

Track a Threat Family

1. Call proofpoint_threat_list_families for the window you care about and find the family (e.g. Emotet) in the returned list — there is no get-by-name
2. Review the campaigns the listing associates with it
3. Call proofpoint_threat_get_campaign for each of those campaign IDs
4. Assess whether the family is actively targeting your organization
5. Review MITRE ATT&CK techniques to inform detection rules

IOC Lookup

An inbound IOC — someone hands you a hash or a URL and asks "have we seen this?" — cannot be looked up directly. There is no indicator-keyed search. The workable approximation:

1. Call proofpoint_threat_get_iocs for the time window in question, optionally narrowed by threat_type
2. Match the indicator against the returned set yourself
3. If it matches, call proofpoint_threat_get_campaign on the associated campaign for context
4. A non-match means "not in the window you pulled", not "never seen" — say so, rather than reporting a clean result

Threat Landscape Review

1. Call proofpoint_reports_threat_summary with a 30-day window
2. Review the breakdown by threat type with counts and trends
3. Add proofpoint_threat_list_families for the same window to see which families are active
4. Cross-reference with your organization's TAP data
5. Update security awareness training based on active campaigns

Correlate Across Multiple Events

1. Gather threat_id values from multiple TAP events
2. For each, call proofpoint_threat_get_by_id for classification and its associated indicators
3. Look for shared infrastructure (common domains, IPs, C2 servers)
4. If shared infrastructure is found, these events may be part of the same campaign
5. Confirm by calling proofpoint_threat_get_campaign on the campaign IDs the threats carry — you cannot search campaigns to find the link, only confirm one you already have

Error Handling

Common API Errors

No Results

• Campaign data may take time to correlate - retry after a few hours
• Some threats may not be attributed to a named campaign
• IOC searches may return no results if the indicator is new or unique to your organization
• Older campaigns may be archived and unavailable via the API

Best Practices

1. Start with TAP events - Use campaign IDs from TAP events as entry points into threat intelligence
2. Export IOCs to blocklists - Feed campaign IOCs into your firewall, proxy, and EDR blocklists
3. Track actor patterns - Named actors have consistent TTPs; use this to predict future attacks
4. Correlate with external intel - Cross-reference Proofpoint intelligence with other threat feeds
5. Update detection rules - Use MITRE ATT&CK techniques from campaigns to tune detection
6. Brief your team - Share campaign summaries with your security team for situational awareness
7. Monitor active families - Track threat families that target your industry vertical
8. Use confidence scores - Prioritize high-confidence IOCs for automated blocking

Related Skills

• Proofpoint TAP - Threat events and click tracking
• Proofpoint Forensics - Deep threat investigation
• Proofpoint People - Identify targeted users
• Proofpoint API Patterns - Authentication and rate limits