Indicators of Future Attack (IOFA™), Silent Push's game-changing threat intelligence uncovers attacker infrastructure before it's weaponized. In a world where breaches hit in minutes and adversaries evolve faster than defenses, IOFA isn't just data—it's your cyber tool for proactive hunting. This guide breaks it down: why you need it, how it outshines traditional tools, and a hands-on walkthrough to harnessing IOFA feeds in Silent Push.
Why IOFA?
Cyber threats include newly registered domains for phishing kits, laundered IP addresses via cloud proxies, or DNS records indicating domain hopping. Traditional Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) are the crime scene photos you find after a break-in: malware hashes, C2 IPs, or anomalous logs that confirm damage has been done. It’s valuable, but reactive.
IOFA flips the script. These forward-looking signals, domains, IPs, and DNS fingerprints reveal where attacks will launch, often 3–6 months ahead, by applying behavioral patterns to Silent Push's vast, first-party dataset of global IPv4/IPv6 scans.
Why do we need it? It slashes alert fatigue with zero false positives, scales via API for SIEM/SOAR integration, and empowers SOCs, IR teams, and CTI pros to block threats at the source.
IOFA vs. IOC: A Quick Showdown
IOFA builds on IOCs but leaps ahead with prediction.
Aspect | IOFA (Future Attack) | IOC (Compromise) |
|---|---|---|
Timing | Proactive: 3–6 months pre-attack (e.g., phishing triad staging). | Reactive: Post-breach forensics (e.g., C2 logs). |
Focus | Behavioral Prep: Laundering, kit domains. | Artifacts: Hashes, anomalies. |
Validation | Zero False Positives: Curated for auto-action. | Triage-Heavy: Correlation needed. |
Use Case | Hunting/Prevention: Block infrastructure early. | Response: Contain damage. |
IOFA prevents what IOCs remediate, creating a layered defense.
Silent Push's feeds turn raw signals into a unified dashboard for creating, managing, and acting on them. IOFA delivers composite objects with context, such as a domain's laundering ties or an IP's ASN hops.
Access and create IOFA Feeds
Log in to Silent Push and navigate to Threat Intelligence Management > IOFA Feeds from the left menu.
Search or filter feeds (for example, by tags like phishing-kit or nation-state).
Click Create Feed to curate your own.
Select observables (domains/IPs), add tags, and set export formats (CSV/JSON).
Hook to SIEM/SOAR via API for auto-enrichment, for example, Threat Check validates IPs against IOFA in seconds.
Real-World Example—Phishing Triad Takedown
Picture this: It's a routine Monday in your SOC when an alert pings: a new domain, secure-bank-alerts.com, pops up in a user's phishing simulation test. It appears innocuous at first glance: a fresh .com domain with a generic login page that mimics your bank’s branding. But instead of diving into a time-sink investigation, your team queries Silent Push's IOFA feeds via API.
Run a quick enrichment:
enrich domain secure-bank-alerts.com iofa=true. IOFA flags it as part of a smishing triad, a bundled SMS phishing kit (short for SMS phishing) that has been staging for three months. This domain resolves to a laundered IP in a high-flux ASN (frequent ownership flips), with passive DNS history showing ties to known kit distributors on the dark web. There has been no breach yet, but the behavioral fingerprint signals an imminent launch. Think automated texts luring users to fake 2FA prompts, potentially harvesting credentials from thousands.Drill into Feed Analytics: Top entities reveal that the domain's nameserver entropy is high (rapid changes signaling evasion), and its average IP diversity reaches 12 resolutions in 30 days, which is a classic triad tactic to dodge blacklists. You can cross-reference with IOCs, which indicate that everything is clean so far. However, IOFA's preemptive edge uncovers the full picture: this isn't a lone wolf; it's linked to a campaign targeting financial sectors, with geolocation pinning precursors in Eastern Europe.
Actionable Block & Beyond: Integrate the feed with your SOAR (e.g., Splunk Phantom) to auto-generate a block rule for the IP/ASN, notify your firewall (e.g., Palo Alto), and push an alert to endpoint protection. Within minutes, the domain is neutralized.
Export the IOFA cluster (JSON format) to your Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP) for tagging (smishing-triad-v2), enriching team reports, and updating playbooks. As a result, zero credentials are lost, a campaign is derailed pre-launch, and your SOC's Mean Time To Respond (MTTR) drops from hours to seconds.
Monitor and analyze in Real-Time
Select a feed and click View > View Indicators.
Toggle Monitor for alerts on new IOFAs. You will receive emails as threats evolve.
Dive into Feed Analytics, which is organized into four views for instant insights.
IOFA Analytics
Feed Overview: Total IOFAs, last update, export options, historical trends, geolocation, and tags. (Spot surges like a 20% IOFA spike signaling a campaign ramp-up.)
Domain Insights: Avg domain age (young = risky), IP diversity (high flux = evasion), ASN changes, NS entropy/reputation. (E.g., low NS rep flags shady hosting.)
IP Insights: Avg domains per IP (clustering = botnets), IP/ASN/subnet reputation. (High density? Prioritize for takedowns.)
Top Entities: Top 10 TLDs/ASNs/registrars/nameservers. (E.g., .top TLD dominance in phishing? Bulk-block.)
Maximize your IOFA edge
Use tags and top entities to zero in on high-risk (e.g., geofenced to APAC for Salt Typhoon variants).
Convert JSON to SOAR for playbooks; refine feeds with false-positive flags via user input.
Utilize IOFA for prevention and IOCs for validation to achieve full-spectrum intelligence.
IOFA arms you to outpace adversaries in the pre-attack shadows. From flagging phishing kits to dismantling APT infrastructure, Silent Push's feeds deliver the intel that turns “what if” into “not on my watch.”