Facebook’s Cybersecurity Platform Hits Critical Mass

More than 90 companies are now using Facebook’s cybersecurity platform, ThreatExchange, to share security and threat information.

As The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend, Facebook saw an additional 23 companies join ThreatExchange since the introduction of a new application process last week. Members of the platform utilize Facebook’s APIs to share and query threat intelligence information with other organizations.

Since the platform was launched in February, it has supported an average of over 3 million interactions each month.

“Lots of threat intelligence feeds already exist, but their noise-to-signal ratio is pretty low. So, we designed ThreatExchange with a focus on the exchange of information, experience and expertise,” Mark Hammell, manager of Facebook’s threat infrastructure team, said in a blog post.

“The platform has built-in features that allow you to pick and choose relevant information to the threats you face. You can also set controls for how you want to communicate with other organizations on the platform.”

Many of the most highly searched topics on the ThreatExchange platform include malware families and threat indicators related to attempted attacks. Facebook confirmed the companies utilizing its tool span seven industries, including technology, security, insurance, financial services, higher education, defense and Internet service providers.

Going forward, the company has big plans for expanding the cybersecurity community.

“Scale is an ongoing objective for ThreatExchange, and we believe product integration is an important step toward this goal. Whether it’s a threat analysis tool that allows for queries and publishing to ThreatExchange — or a SIEM or other major detection system that correlates its data with what you can access on the platform — we’ll be working with several partners to identify the best path forward with product integration,” Hammell said.

Facebook is also working to add companies to its platform from additional sectors, such as business consulting, retail and telecommunications.



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