Intel 471 is a cyber threat intelligence company that provides organizations with actionable, human-led intelligence to identify and mitigate risks from cybercriminals, malware, and underground marketplaces. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Intel 471 co-founder and CEO Jason Passwaters to learn more.
Jason Passwaters’ Background
Could you tell me more about your background? Passwaters said:
“My professional background is grounded in intelligence and security, which served as the impetus for the establishment of Intel 471. I dedicated 12 years to service in the U.S. Marine Corps, where I navigated the intricate and continuously evolving cybersecurity landscape, conducting tactical intelligence collection through military operations. This extensive experience was instrumental in shaping my expertise as a security practitioner. Before co-founding Intel 471, I directed the development of the global research department at iSIGHT Partners, a Dallas-based firm subsequently acquired by Trellix and integrated into Google/Mandiant. This department was responsible for identifying and tracking some of the world’s most advanced cybercriminals and state-sponsored actors. Today, I lead a team of over 250 Intel 471 employees in more than 30 countries, with the goal of understanding and operationalizing cyber threat intelligence (CTI) for business resilience.”
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? Passwaters shared:
“After serving as a counterintelligence specialist in the Marines, I wanted to continue my work in threat intelligence in the private sector. In 2014, Mark Arena and I co-founded Intel 471 with the goal to protect organizations from cybercrime with actionable intelligence. As CEO, I focus on enhancing the company’s platform and continuously work on expanding Intel 471’s footprint in the cybersecurity market.”
“Our overarching strategy is to provide intelligence-driven cybersecurity solutions, allowing organizations to better understand and assess their exposure to existing and emerging cyber threats. Ultimately, Intel 471’s mission is to neutralize attacks and reduce risk for our customers by leveraging our unparalleled data and intelligence.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Passwaters explained:
“– Intel 471 empowers enterprises, government agencies, and other organizations to win the cybersecurity war using real-time insights about adversaries. At the heart of this is Verity471, launched in July 2025, which brings together our three cyber threat portfolios within a unified cyber intelligence platform:
1.) Cyber Threat Exposure: This portfolio provides insights into an organization’s digital footprint and potential vulnerabilities, allowing security teams to understand where they are most exposed to threats.
2.) Cyber Threat Intelligence: This core portfolio delivers high-fidelity intelligence on active threats across the external landscape, malware campaigns, emerging vulnerabilities, adversaries and their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), enabling informed decision-making and strategic defense. Threat Hunting: This portfolio equips security professionals with the tools and data necessary to actively search for and neutralize hidden threats within their networks, even those that have evaded traditional security controls.
Together, this platform empowers cybersecurity teams to address the industry’s challenges with immediate operational readiness of CTI for intelligence-driven prioritization, threat hunting and threat exposure detection, response and remediation. Verity471 is built to deliver what cybersecurity teams need from their cyber intelligence platform to be more effective.”
Challenges Faced
Have you faced any challenges in your sector of work recently? Passwaters acknowledged:
“The security industry constantly faces a series of challenges, from budget cuts and cyber skill gaps to a lack of resources. Throughout my career, I’ve had a front-row seat to these challenges and have witnessed the various ways security teams combat them. More recently, we’ve seen the threat landscape and the cybercriminal underground evolve at a rapid pace, where threat actors are becoming more sophisticated with the use of AI and other tactics. “
“This is exactly why we’ve launched several solutions to help organizations of all sizes operationalize their data and make sense of the evolving threat landscape to ensure their business is prepared for any attack. Our solutions are made by security practitioners for security practitioners. Some of our recent launches that directly address these challenges include:
— Verity471: Integrates Intel 471’s entire suite of solutions within a single platform to streamline existing intelligence capabilities, optimize workflows and promote heightened collaboration among security teams
— Guided Threat Hunts: Empowers threat hunters with the capabilities to craft their own queries and filters to more efficiently identify sophisticated threat behaviors that evade traditional detection methods
— Build-Your-Own Threat Hunt: Allows threat hunters to map hunt queries to tried-and-tested methodologies for managing investigations and measuring hunt performance metrics that matter
Together, these solutions provide security teams of any size with the intelligence they need to understand and proactively take action against any threat that is lurking in their network.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Passwaters noted:
“As I mentioned previously, the evolving threat landscape has increased the need for cyber intelligence services. As such, Intel 471 has remained committed to adapting its solutions on an ongoing basis to anticipate customers’ needs and equip enterprises with the necessary tools and systems for best-in-class threat hunting.”
“Intel 471 has enhanced its solution portfolio both organically and through acquisitions. In 2022, we acquired and integrated SpiderFoot; this expanded Intel 471’s CTI portfolio with OSINT intelligence from over 200 different sources, including DNS records, Whois records, IP addresses, social media, data breaches, open ports and vulnerabilities, and more. With this acquisition, Intel 471 can deliver additional insights into data leaks, vulnerabilities, and other sensitive information that enables us to address enterprise-level Attack Surface Exposure, Third-Party Exposure, and Supply Chain Exposure.”
“Then In May 2024, Intel 471 acquired Cyborg Security and integrated with the company’s HUNTER platform to provide organizations with advanced threat hunting capabilities and expertise, enabling them to leverage current intelligence to mitigate threats. This evolution was especially critical for organizations that had been ingesting threat intelligence but needed help setting up or refining their processes for more efficient threat detection in their logging systems. The acquisition further cemented CTI as a key requirement to enable accurate hunts and proper measurements for operational success, ensuring return on investment for customers’ threat hunt programs.”
“The launch of Verity 471 in July 2025 officially brought the TITAN and HUNTER platforms together. As I mentioned earlier, Intel 471 continues to release new solutions and capabilities to help organizations of all sizes and needs to scale their threat intelligence and threat hunting programs.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Passwaters cited:
“Since Intel 471 was founded, we have made significant strides through acquisitions, partnerships and new product announcements, below are some of the key milestones and accomplishments of Intel 471 over the years.
2014:
— Intel 471 founded
— TITAN, SaaS platform launched
2018:
— Launched Malware Intelligence
2019 launched:
— Vulnerability Intelligence
— Finished Intelligence (FINTEL) Reporting
— Instant Messaging (IM) Services Collection
2020:
— Integration Expansion to Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIPs) and Malware Information Sharing Platform (MISP)
— General Intelligence Requirements (GIR) Framework tagging in TITAN
2021 launched:
— Credential Intelligence
— Breach Alerts
2022 launched:
— Launched Mobile Malware
— Launched Market Intelligence
— Patent issued for Malware Emulation Tracking System (METS)
2024:
— Launched Attack Surface Protection
— Acquired Cyborg Security and brought together Cyborg’s threat hunting and our CTI expertise
— Sponsored the first version of the Cyber Threat Intelligence Capability Maturity Model (CTI-CMM)
— Integration with Microsoft Copilot
2025 launched:
— Verity471, an innovative next-level evolution SaaS platform delivering Cyber Threat Exposure, Intelligence, and Hunt Data on a single, user-friendly operational platform that enables intelligence professionals to unlock the full value of our cyber threat intelligence
— Cyber Geopolitical Intelligence
Funding/Revenue
Are you able to discuss funding and/or revenue metrics? Passwaters revealed:
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Passwaters assessed:
“Intel 471 delivers security solutions for over 24 real-world use cases that are driven by the highest fidelity and most actionable data in the global market, with a durable advantage over its peers, as consistently reported by customers and partners. We serve enterprises across the globe with revenues with varying levels of CTI maturity and cybersecurity infrastructure, from those with limited to advanced resources. Today, we have customers in over 30 countries.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Passwaters affirmed:
“Organizations rely on Intel 471’s differentiated solution because we deliver:
— Comprehensive Threat Intelligence Ecosystem: Advanced end-to-end software capabilities enable seamless, highly relevant, and real-time intelligence delivery
— Proprietary Intelligence: Automated collection of Tier 1 & 2 data sources allows unique insight into threat actors’ behavior and risks
— Ability to Operationalize: Intelligence-driven platform solves customer needs holistically, from threat discovery to behavioral threat actor analysis, to threat hunting
We set ourselves apart from our competitors with our unparalleled cyber threat intelligence, practitioner engagement and enablement. Our worldwide team of intelligence analysts – localized where threat actors formerly operated with impunity – ensures that our customers can assess, organize and equip their cyber defenses before an attack can occur.
We constantly strive to improve and adapt Intel 471’s platform and specialized threat intelligence solutions, knowing that attention to detail in reporting and research can make the difference between an uncovered attack and an unprevented attack.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Passwaters emphasized:
“Intel 471 continues to focus on making threat intelligence easier to operationalize across the enterprise for business resilience. We are expanding our exposure coverage to include both attack surface and third-party risks, while strengthening hunt integrations with major XDR and security platforms. Long term, we aim to bridge the gap between intel teams and business stakeholders.”
“As the digital landscape expands and evolves, Intel 471 empowers every corner of the business with cyber threat intelligence that brings clarity and confidence in an increasingly hostile digital world.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you would like to discuss? Passwaters concluded:
“Beyond the company’s most recent platform and capabilities launches, Intel 471 also actively invests in the industry:
In 2020, Intel 471 made the decision to make the General Intelligence Requirements Framework openly available to advance CTI teams across the globe to assist security teams in building a successful requirements-based program. One that:
- Maximizes CTI resources
- Measures CTI success
- Measures CTI ROI to business
In 2025 partnered with the U.S Department of Defense (DOD) SkillBridge, which is a resource for transitioning U.S. service members to gain valuable civilian work experience through industry training, apprenticeships or internships during their last 180 days of service. With nearly half of Intel 471’s staff having strong internal ties to law enforcement, military or intelligence, Intel 471 is proud to leverage its global cybersecurity business and network to help military service members make the transition from military to civilian life smoother and more efficient.
Conducts quarterly Intelligence Planning and Threat Hunting workshops at no cost to support security practitioners in building and enhancing their skills and competencies so they might better assist their organizations in proactively responding, neutralizing threats and mitigating”
Intel 471 is Your Voice of Reason and Truth.
