The purpose of this generic qualitative inquiry study was to research the barriers cybersecurity professionals face in receiving timely and accurate intelligence information regarding cyberattacks. There is a gap in current literature regarding what obstacles cybersecurity professionals face when trying to detect and deter cybercrime. The research question asked: "How do information security professionals describe their challenges in receiving timely and accurate cyber threat intelligence information?" The generic qualitative study used semi-structured interviews to collect information from study participants. Eight participants were interviewed to discern the challenges cybersecurity professionals encountered in receiving timely cyberattack threat information. The participants were all United States residents employed in the areas of cybersecurity, with at least 3 years of experience and had utilized actional cyber threat information sharing within the last year. Interview transcripts were analyzed to determine reoccurring themes using an open-coding process. The following three themes emerged: (a) the volume and nature of the data, (b) the constraints of time, and (c) trust. The key findings suggest that there are many similarities between cybersecurity defense and the theory of warning intelligence. There are many opportunities for improvement within cybersecurity defense utilizing shared intelligence and security automation. Intelligence sharing between agencies and security automation would assist cybersecurity professionals with a greater ability to detect and deter cyberattacks. The identified themes provide a foundation for future research into ways that information sharing, and security automation can reduce the amount of time it takes to detect and deter cyberattacks.
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