Cyber Threat Intelligence Podcast Season 1 - Episode 7 (Pedro Kertzman & John Doyle)
What does the future of Cyber Threat Intelligence look like beyond basic feeds and reports? Former CIA analyst John Doyle takes us behind the curtain of modern CTI operations, revealing how smart teams are delivering value across entire organizations.
With over 16 years tracking state-sponsored APT groups and now serving as a principal intelligence enablement consultant, Doyle explains how CTI roles are evolving to meet expanding demands. "Organizations use CTI for one of three reasons," he shares. "You've saved the company money, you're making the company money, or you're improving efficiency." This value-driven approach has transformed how CTI teams position themselves in the security ecosystem.
The conversation explores frameworks revolutionizing how teams measure their impact, including the CTI-CMM with its newly developed metrics system. Doyle also highlights unexpected partnerships forming between threat intelligence and other business units—from security awareness to HR—as threats like North Korean IT workers infiltrating legitimate companies create challenges that span traditional departmental boundaries.
For practitioners seeking growth, Doyle maps out the conference landscape from Washington DC's CyberWarCon to European events like FIRST CTI, noting that despite the industry's introverted reputation, these gatherings feature "the smartest people in the world who are super humble" and eager to share knowledge. He also details how AI is transforming intelligence workflows, enabling resource-constrained teams to operate at much higher capacity while maintaining the critical human judgment that separates great analysis from mere data processing.
Whether you're building a CTI program, looking to prove your team's value, or simply curious about how intelligence tradecraft translates from government to private sector, this conversation offers practical insights into an industry where collaboration remains the ultimate competitive advantage. As Doyle concludes, "The more opportunity we have to work with each other and grow from one another, the better off we're going to be."
Resources:
https://cti-cmm.org/
https://medium.com/@likethecoins
https://klrgrz.medium.com/
https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/cti-analyst-core-competencies-framework-v1.pdf
Thanks for tuning in! If you found this episode valuable, don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review. Got thoughts or questions? Connect with us on our LinkedIn Group: Cyber Threat Intelligence Podcast—we’d love to hear from you. If you know anyone with CTI expertise that would like to be interviewed in the show, just let us know. Until next time, stay sharp and stay secure!