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Simple Intelligence Collector

Overview

Welcome to the simple intelligence collector workshop! In this lab, you'll build a streamlined threat intelligence collection service that demonstrates essential security automation patterns.

What You'll Build

A production-ready Intelligence Collector that:

  • Multi-source threat intelligence aggregation - Fetch from multiple threat feeds simultaneously
  • Whitelist-first security - Built-in protection for essential infrastructure
  • Clean API design - RESTful endpoints for integration with other systems
  • Real-time visibility - Simple status page to monitor operations
  • Production-ready patterns - Error handling, data validation, and monitoring

Architecture Overview

Multiple Feeds → Intelligence Collector → Whitelist Filter → KV Storage
│ │ │ │
IPsum Feed Deduplication Cloudflare IPs Filtered Data
EmergingThreats Scoring Custom IPs Clean Threats
│ │ │ │
Raw Data Enriched Data Safe Lists Production Ready

Key Learning Objectives

By the end of this phase, you'll understand:

  1. Multi-Source Data Aggregation - How to collect and merge data from multiple threat intelligence feeds
  2. Conflict Resolution - Handling duplicate and conflicting threat intelligence data
  3. Whitelist-First Security - Implementing safety mechanisms to prevent false positives
  4. Production API Design - Creating robust, well-documented APIs for service integration
  5. Error Resilience - Building services that gracefully handle failures
  6. Real-time Monitoring - Creating visibility into your security automation

Core Design Principles

1. Multi-Source Intelligence Aggregation

  • Fetch from multiple threat intelligence feeds simultaneously
  • Handle different data formats (plain text, CSV, JSON APIs)
  • Implement source reliability weighting (trusted sources get higher scores)
  • Graceful degradation when individual sources are unavailable

2. Conflict Resolution & Data Quality

  • Automatic deduplication across all sources using IP as primary key
  • Additive scoring system where multiple sources increase confidence
  • Source attribution tracking (which feeds flagged each IP)
  • Data freshness validation to avoid stale threat intelligence

3. Whitelist-First Security Philosophy

  • Whitelist always overrides threat intelligence (safety first)
  • Built-in protection for essential infrastructure (Cloudflare IPs)
  • Support for custom business-critical IP ranges
  • Audit trail for all whitelist additions and removals

4. Production-Ready API Design

  • RESTful endpoints with consistent JSON responses
  • CORS support for browser-based integrations
  • Clear error handling with actionable error messages
  • Built-in API documentation via status page

Time Allocation

  • Total Duration: 45 minutes
  • Project Setup: 5 minutes
  • Core Implementation: 25 minutes
  • Testing & Validation: 15 minutes

Success Metrics

After completing this phase, you'll have:

  • ✅ A working multi-source threat intelligence collector
  • ✅ Whitelist protection preventing false positives
  • ✅ A simple status page showing real-time data
  • ✅ Clean APIs for integration with other systems
  • ✅ Understanding of conflict resolution between threats and whitelists

What Makes This "Simple" Yet Effective

This streamlined implementation focuses on core essentials:

  • Multi-source aggregation from trusted threat intelligence feeds
  • Intelligent scoring based on source reliability and overlap
  • Whitelist protection to prevent blocking critical infrastructure
  • Clean API design with proper error handling and pagination
  • Automated scheduling for regular threat intelligence updates

Next Steps

Ready to get started? Begin with Project Setup to initialize your Intelligence Collector Worker.

This simplified intelligence collector demonstrates core concepts of threat intelligence aggregation, whitelist protection, and API design - essential patterns for building production-grade security automation systems.