Threat Intelligence Feeds: Which Ones Actually Matter

When I built Valta, the Securitix threat intelligence engine, the first challenge was not finding intelligence sources - it was filtering them. There are hundreds of CTI feeds, free and paid, and the temptation is to ingest them all. The result? Noise. Thousands of low-quality IOCs that generate false positives and dilute the indicators that actually matter. The best threat intelligence feeds are those that offer actionable data, not volume.

The feeds I use in production

After testing dozens of sources, here are the 9 feeds I actively use in Valta: NVD (vulnerabilities, the authoritative source), GHSA (vulnerabilities in open source packages), CISA KEV (actively exploited vulnerabilities - this is pure gold for patching prioritization), Vulners (aggregator with broad coverage), Abuse.ch (malware, botnets, high-quality IOCs - URLhaus, MalBazaar, ThreatFox), AlienVault OTX (community intelligence with context), and selected RSS feeds for sector-specific advisories.

The secret: relevance scoring

Having 9 feeds is not enough if you don't filter for relevance. In Valta, every indicator passes through our AI-based relevance scoring engine. The scoring considers the client's technology profile (do you use Apache? Then Apache CVEs are relevant to you), the industry sector (healthcare has different threats than manufacturing), and in-the-wild exploitation activity (a CVE with active exploits takes priority over a theoretical one).

A practical tip: if you are starting with threat intelligence, begin with three sources: CISA KEV (patching priority), Abuse.ch (network IOCs), and NVD (vulnerabilities). These three alone give you a solid baseline coverage. Then expand based on your specific needs. Do not add feeds just to increase numbers - every feed you add must answer the question: "Does this help me make better decisions?" If the answer is no, it is just noise.