Breaking Down the Babel Tower: Tech Giants Unite to Standardize Cyberthreat Actor Identification

Microsoft and CrowdStrike have unveiled a collaborative initiative designed to harmonize their respective cyberthreat actor classification systems through the development of a unified threat actor correlation framework. This partnership represents a significant step toward addressing one of the cybersecurity industry's most persistent challenges: the confusing proliferation of different names for the same threat groups.

The Problem: A Tower of Babel in Cybersecurity

The cybersecurity industry has long struggled with a nomenclature crisis where individual security vendors assign unique identifiers to the same threat actors. This fragmented naming approach has created a complex web of aliases that can obscure rather than clarify threat intelligence.

According to Vasu Jakkal, Microsoft Security's corporate vice president, the joint mapping effort will "provide security professionals with the ability to connect insights faster and make decisions with greater confidence." The initiative specifically targets the confusion created by the multitude of nicknames assigned to hacking groups across five primary categories:

• Nation-state actors
• Financially motivated cybercriminals
• Influence operation groups
• Private sector offensive actors
• Emerging threat clusters

Real-World Examples of Naming Confusion

The scale of this naming inconsistency becomes apparent when examining specific threat actors:

Russian State-Sponsored Group Example: The threat actor Microsoft identifies as Midnight Blizzard (previously called Nobelium) operates under at least six additional aliases across different security vendors: APT29, BlueBravo, Cloaked Ursa, Cozy Bear, Iron Hemlock, and The Dukes.

Another Russian Group: Forest Blizzard (formerly known as Strontium in Microsoft's previous naming convention) has accumulated an even more extensive list of alternative identifiers including Blue Athena, BlueDelta, Fancy Bear, Fighting Ursa, FROZENLAKE, Iron Twilight, Pawn Storm, Sednit, Sofacy, and TA422.

It's worth noting that Microsoft transitioned from chemical element-based naming conventions to weather-themed threat actor terminology in April 2023, adding another layer to the historical naming complexity.

The Solution: A "Rosetta Stone" for Threat Intelligence

The Microsoft-CrowdStrike partnership aims to create what CrowdStrike's Adam Meyers describes as a "Rosetta Stone" for threat actor identification. This collaborative framework has already achieved significant results, successfully deconflicting more than 80 different adversary groups by mapping their various aliases and establishing clear correlations.

Key Benefits and Objectives

The unified mapping system is designed to address several critical challenges in cybersecurity intelligence:

Improved Attribution Accuracy: By eliminating confusion around threat actor names, security professionals can make more confident and accurate attributions of cyberattacks.

Faster Intelligence Correlation: The standardized mapping enables quicker identification of related threat activities across different security platforms and vendors.

Enhanced Response Times: Reduced confusion about actor identity should lead to faster incident response and more effective defensive measures.

Community-Wide Intelligence Sharing: The framework creates opportunities for more comprehensive threat intelligence sharing across the cybersecurity ecosystem.

Expanding Industry Participation

While the initiative began as a bilateral effort between Microsoft and CrowdStrike, it's designed to accommodate broader industry participation. Google and its Mandiant subsidiary, along with Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, are expected to contribute to the mapping effort. The partnership anticipates that additional cybersecurity companies will join the initiative over time.

Important Distinction: Correlation, Not Standardization

The collaboration explicitly avoids attempting to impose a single, universal naming standard across the industry. Instead, the focus remains on creating comprehensive correlation maps that allow different vendors to maintain their existing nomenclature while providing clear cross-references to equivalent identifiers used by other organizations.

CrowdStrike emphasizes that the initiative aims to "better correlate threat actor aliases without sticking to a single naming scheme," preserving vendor autonomy while improving industry-wide intelligence sharing.

Strategic Intelligence Enhancement

Beyond simple name correlation, the partnership creates opportunities for enhanced threat intelligence through complementary data sharing. As Meyers noted, "where telemetry complements one another, there's an opportunity to extend attribution across more planes and vectors — building a richer, more accurate view of adversary campaigns that benefits the entire community."

This approach suggests the mapping initiative could evolve into a more comprehensive threat intelligence sharing framework that leverages the combined observational capabilities of multiple security vendors.

Industry Impact and Future Implications

The Microsoft-CrowdStrike threat actor mapping initiative represents a significant maturation of the cybersecurity industry's approach to threat intelligence sharing. By addressing the fundamental communication barriers created by inconsistent naming conventions, the partnership could catalyze broader improvements in collective cyber defense capabilities.

The success of this initial collaboration may serve as a model for similar standardization efforts in other areas of cybersecurity, potentially leading to more cohesive and effective industry-wide responses to evolving cyber threats.