Priority Intelligence Requirements

A Priority Intelligence Requirement (PIR) is a high-level intelligence question or topic that an organization formally considers critical for supporting business decision-making and risk management. PIRs define what your intelligence team should be tracking to protect and support your organization. They represent a consensus between executive leadership and the threat intelligence team about what the organization cares about most, which risks require ongoing monitoring, and what type of reporting leadership expects. PIRs help ensure that intelligence efforts are aligned with business priorities—not just collecting data, but answering the right questions.

ThreatStream Next Gen enables you to create PIRs based on the requirements of your organization, run them on your schedule, analyze the results with Anomali AI, deduplicate findings against existing intelligence in ThreatStream, and deliver structured outputs via new threat models, reports, email notifications, or investigations. By managing PIRs within the ThreatStream Next Gen platform, you can turn them into actionable, trackable intelligence drivers. When properly operationalized, PIRs elevate threat intelligence from time-consuming, passive monitoring to an automated, strategic business function.

Characteristics of an Effective PIR

Effective PIRs are precise, measurable, and decision-oriented.

An effective PIR should:

  • Ask a single, focused question

  • Address a fact, event, or activity that can be answered with intelligence

  • Support a specific decision

  • Be time-sensitive

  • Be tied directly to decisions key stakeholders must make

Examples of Priority Intelligence Requirements

Organizations typically define a small set of core PIRs (often 5–10) that guide daily intelligence activities and threat monitoring efforts. They vary by industry, geography, and business model.

Below are PIR examples based on common organizational needs.

Industry-Focused PIRs

  • What threat actors are actively targeting the financial services industry?

  • What emerging ransomware groups are attacking regional banks?

  • What cyber campaigns are targeting healthcare providers?

Organization-Specific PIRs

  • Are any threat actors actively targeting our organization?

  • Has our company been mentioned on dark web forums?

  • Are there leaked credentials associated with our employees or domains?

Geographic PIRs

  • What cyber threats are active in our city or region?

  • Are there politically motivated cyber activities affecting businesses in our country?

Technology- or Asset-Focused PIRs

  • Are there active exploits targeting our critical software stack?

  • What vulnerabilities are being weaponized against our cloud provider?