From Ransomware Matrices To Actionable Threat Actor Profiles (Will Thomas & Pedro Kertzman)

The fastest way to fall behind in cybersecurity is to stay reactive while attackers iterate in real time. We sit down with Will Thomas, known across the CTI community as “BushidoToken” to get practical about what actually helps defenders: threat actor profiling that is repeatable, actionable, and built for change.We start with how Will builds community-ready resources like the ransomware tool matrix and his threat actor profiling guide, then zoom into the Conti leaks and what hundreds of thousands of internal ransomware messages can teach us. From “salary day” breakdowns to operator behavior during major incidents, we talk about why these datasets are a gold mine and how to avoid getting lost in the volume. Will shares a concrete workflow for large-scale analysis using JSON exports, regex searches, CyberChef, and Elasticsearch so you can extract IOCs, wallets, infrastructure clues, and the higher-level “so what” that drives detections and threat hunting.From there, we shift into emerging threats and modern intrusion tradecraft: hacktivism that ranges from empty noise to destructive campaigns, EDR bypass techniques like bring-your-own vulnerable drivers and “EDR-on-EDR” tactics, and the steady rise of legitimate tools abused for access. We also dig into identity-led attacks where stolen credentials, social engineering, and SSO platforms like Okta can make endpoint controls less decisive. Finally, we unpack threat intelligence exchange beyond IOC feeds, including why STIX/TAXII still matters, how data quality and freshness drive results, and why a bidirectional TIP and SIEM relationship enables better correlation and “sightings.”Subscribe, share the episode with your team, and leave a review, then tell us: what part of your threat intelligence program needs the biggest upgrade right now?Send us Fan MailSupport the showThanks 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!