CTI that changes decisions: what CISOs actually need

TL;DR: The SANS 2026 CTI Survey shows that 91% of CISOs value threat intelligence, but only 26% say it significantly influences decisions, according to Intel 471, underscoring a gap between awareness and action. The real problem is not intelligence volume, but packaging CTI so it changes prioritisation, remediation, and board-level choices.

Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Intel 471: “What CISOs want from Cyber Threat Intelligence”.

By the numbers:

• 91% of CISOs value CTI, but only 26% say it significantly influences their decisions.
• 79% want information about vulnerabilities being actively targeted by attackers.
• 77% want specific adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures.

Key questions

Q: What breaks when CTI is not turned into decision support?

A: CTI loses influence when it stops at awareness and never reaches prioritisation, ownership, or explicit remediation.

Q: Why does active exploitation intelligence matter more than broad threat coverage?

A: Because broad coverage tells you what is happening in the world, while active exploitation tells you what is likely to affect your environment first.

Q: What do security teams get wrong about vulnerability management in complex environments?

A: They often treat the software flaw as the whole problem.

Practitioner guidance

• Build decision-oriented intelligence packages Structure CTI deliverables around the decisions executives and control owners must make, including budget allocation, patch priority, and incident escalation.
• Map active exploitation to exposed assets Tie exploited CVEs and adversary TTPs to the specific systems, services, and identity dependencies in your environment before assigning remediation priority.
• Embed CTI into post-incident reviews Add a CTI contribution section to every after-action review so teams can record whether intelligence existed, whether it was acted on, and what changed.

Bottom line: The central CTI failure is not weak intelligence quality, but weak translation from analysis into the next operational decision.

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