Pulsedive – Threat Intelligence Platform and API

Overview

Pulsedive offers a threat intelligence platform designed to aggregate, contextualize, and analyze threat data for developers and security professionals. The platform's primary function is to provide actionable intelligence by collecting indicators of compromise (IOCs) and correlating them with various threat attributes, including type, threat, and risk scores. This allows users to understand the nature and severity of potential threats impacting their systems or networks.

Developers can integrate Pulsedive into existing security tools and workflows through its RESTful API. This API enables programmatic access to Pulsedive's extensive database of threats and indicators, facilitating automated enrichment of security alerts, proactive threat hunting, and streamlined incident response processes. For instance, an alert from a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system containing an IP address could be automatically queried against Pulsedive to retrieve its associated threat profile, risk score, and known campaigns, enriching the alert data for analysts.

Pulsedive is suitable for organizations of varying sizes, from individual security researchers leveraging the Free Community Tier to enterprises requiring comprehensive threat intelligence feeds and extensive API access for security automation. Use cases extend to vulnerability management, where intelligence on active threats can prioritize patching efforts, and digital forensics, where historical threat data aids in understanding attack vectors. The platform aims to reduce manual effort in threat analysis by providing structured data and context for a wide range of indicators, including IP addresses, domains, URLs, and file hashes.

The service launched in 2017 and has since focused on providing accessible threat intelligence. Its developer experience is centered around a well-documented API, offering clear examples for common operations such as querying indicator details, submitting new indicators, and managing custom feeds. This design supports straightforward integration into custom scripts, security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) platforms, and other security tools, aligning with modern security operations practices that emphasize automation and data-driven decision-making. The approach is similar to how other platforms, like Recorded Future, provide structured threat data for integration into security ecosystems, focusing on contextual enrichment to improve response times and accuracy.

Key features

• Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP): Centralized platform for managing, analyzing, and correlating threat indicators with detailed context and risk scores.
• Pulsedive API: A RESTful API providing programmatic access to query indicator information, submit new indicators, and retrieve threat intelligence data for integration into security tools and workflows. The API reference details endpoints for indicators, threats, and feeds.
• Threat Intelligence Feeds: Curated data feeds offering a continuous stream of threat indicators, categorized by type, source, and risk, available for subscription to enhance existing security systems.
• Indicator Enrichment: Automatically enriches indicators of compromise (IOCs) such as IP addresses, domains, URLs, and file hashes with associated threats, risk scores, and contextual information.
• Threat Scoring and Prioritization: Assigns risk scores to threats and indicators based on various attributes, aiding in prioritizing response efforts and focusing on the most critical threats.
• Community and Private Data Submission: Allows users to contribute new threat intelligence data to the public community database or manage private intelligence internally.
• Search and Filtering: Advanced search capabilities to explore the threat database, filter indicators by type, source, risk, and other attributes.

Pricing

Pulsedive offers a Free Community Tier with limited access and several paid tiers for more extensive usage, starting with the Pro Tier. Pricing is structured to accommodate individual researchers up to large enterprises requiring comprehensive threat intelligence and API access.

For detailed information on each tier's features and current pricing, refer to the official Pulsedive pricing page.

Common integrations

Pulsedive's API facilitates integration with a variety of security and IT tools. Common integration points include:

• Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems: Integrate to enrich security logs and alerts with threat intelligence from Pulsedive, enhancing context for incident analysis.
• Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platforms: Automate threat intelligence lookups and actions within SOAR playbooks for faster incident response and triage.
• Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions: Use Pulsedive data to identify and block known malicious indicators on endpoints.
• Firewalls and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS): Feed threat intelligence into network security devices to block malicious IP addresses and domains proactively.
• Vulnerability Management tools: Prioritize patching and mitigation efforts by correlating vulnerabilities with active threats identified by Pulsedive.
• Custom Security Scripts: Developers can build custom scripts using the Pulsedive API to automate specific threat intelligence tasks or integrate with niche internal systems.

Alternatives

Organizations seeking threat intelligence platforms may consider the following alternatives:

• Recorded Future: Provides real-time threat intelligence by analyzing open, deep, and dark web sources.
• ThreatConnect: An intelligence-driven security operations platform that unifies threat intelligence, security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR), and risk quantification.
• MISP (Malware Information Sharing Platform): An open-source threat intelligence platform for sharing, storing, and correlating indicators of compromise.
• Mandiant Threat Intelligence: Offers comprehensive threat intelligence services and platforms, often geared towards larger enterprises with advanced requirements.
• AlienVault USM (AT&T Cybersecurity): A unified security management platform that includes threat detection, incident response, and compliance management with integrated threat intelligence.

Getting started

To begin using the Pulsedive API, you will need an API key, which can be obtained after registering for an account on the Pulsedive platform. The following Python example demonstrates how to query details for an indicator (e.g., an IP address) using the Pulsedive API.

import requests
import json

# Replace with your actual API key and the indicator you want to query
API_KEY = "YOUR_PULSEDIVE_API_KEY"
INDICATOR_VALUE = "203.0.113.45" # Example IP address

# Pulsedive API endpoint for indicator lookup
url = f"https://pulsedive.com/api/info.php?indicator={INDICATOR_VALUE}&key={API_KEY}"

try:
    response = requests.get(url)
    response.raise_for_status()  # Raise an HTTPError for bad responses (4xx or 5xx)
    
    data = response.json()
    
    if data and data.get("status") == "success":
        print(f"Indicator: {INDICATOR_VALUE}")
        print(f"Threat: {data.get('threat', 'N/A')}")
        print(f"Risk: {data.get('risk', 'N/A')}")
        print(f"Description: {data.get('description', 'N/A')}")
        if 'properties' in data:
            print("Properties:")
            for prop in data['properties']:
                print(f"  - Type: {prop.get('type')}, Value: {prop.get('value')}")
    else:
        print(f"Error or no data found: {data.get('message', 'Unknown error.')}")
        
except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
    print(f"Request failed: {e}")
except json.JSONDecodeError:
    print(f"Failed to decode JSON from response: {response.text}")

This script sends a GET request to the Pulsedive API with the specified indicator and API key. It then parses the JSON response to extract and display key information about the indicator, such as its associated threat, risk score, and a brief description. For more complex queries and data submissions, consult the Pulsedive API documentation.