Domain separation and Threat Intelligence

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 5 minutes to read
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    Summary of Domain separation and Threat Intelligence

    The Threat Intelligence module, part of the Security Incident Response application, supports domain separation to help service providers (SPs) manage threat intelligence data securely across multiple customers within a single ServiceNow instance. Domain separation allows logical grouping of data, workflows, and administrative tasks into isolated domains, ensuring that customer data remains private and accessible only to authorized users.

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    This capability is especially relevant for SPs who serve multiple tenants, enabling them to create and manage threat sources, TAXII profiles, observables, indicators of compromise (IOCs), attack methods, and cases separately for each customer, thereby reducing operational costs and improving service quality.

    Key Features

    • Domain-specific data management: Security incident observables, threat feeds, TAXII service profiles, attack modes/methods, and cases are stored and accessed within their respective domains, preventing cross-tenant data visibility.
    • Domain-aware workflows: Use cases such as incident creation, observable collection from various sources (email parsers, SIEMs, threat feeds), and case management respect domain boundaries.
    • Configuration per domain: Each tenant domain can independently configure TAXII profiles, threat sources, attack methods (manual or feed-based), and default lists for threat categories such as attack mechanisms, indicator types, malware types, and more.
    • Role-based access control: User roles and groups can be assigned per domain to control access and administrative privileges.
    • Global properties: Some settings like API keys and lookup preferences are global and not domain-separated.

    How Domain Separation Works in Threat Intelligence

    Threat Intelligence is available in the Professional and Enterprise Tiers of Security Incident Response and requires a separate plugin. The domain separation mechanism ensures that incidents and related threat data are isolated within the domain of their origin. Parent domains can reference child domain data, but not vice versa, maintaining strict data boundaries.

    The module supports the full lifecycle of threat intelligence data, including the ingestion of observables from various sources, associating observables with indicators and incidents, managing indicators of compromise and attack modes, and long-term case investigations—all within domain contexts.

    Domain-separated Data and Configuration

    Once domain separation is enabled in the instance, Threat Intelligence tables automatically acquire a domain attribute. This ensures that observables, indicators, attack methods, TAXII profiles, threat sources, and cases are accessible only within their domains.

    Domain owners can independently create and manage TAXII service profiles, threat intelligence sources, attack modes/methods, and configure default threat information lists. This autonomy supports tailored threat intelligence management per tenant.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Secure multi-tenant management: Ensures strict data separation to meet privacy and compliance requirements when managing multiple customers.
    • Operational efficiency: Enables centralized platform management while maintaining isolated workflows and data for each tenant.
    • Flexible configuration: Tenants can customize threat intelligence sources, attack methodologies, and default threat information independently to suit their specific needs.
    • Improved incident response: Facilitates accurate and domain-specific threat data handling, enhancing investigation and remediation processes.

    Domain separation is supported in the Threat Intelligence module that is available as part of Security Incident Response. Domain separation enables you to separate data, processes, and administrative tasks into logical groupings called domains. You can control several aspects of this separation, including which users can see and access data.

    Support level: Basic

    • Includes Basic level support.
    • Business logic: The service provider (SP) creates or modifies processes per customer. The use cases reflect proper use of the application by multiple SP customers in a single instance.
    • The instance owner must configure the minimum viable product (MVP) business logic and data parameters per tenant as expected for the specific application.

    Sample use case: An admin must be able to make comments required when a record closes for one tenant, but not for another.

    For more information on support levels, see Application support for domain separation.

    Overview

    In the Threat Intelligence module (as part of the Security Incident Response application), domain separation enables service providers (SPs) to create and manage the threat intelligence repository in the following ways:

    • Threat sources and Trusted Automated Exchange of Indicator Information (TAXII) profiles
    • Observables
    • Indicators of compromise
    • Threat attack modes / methods and case management across the customer base they serve with lowered operational costs and a higher quality of service

    Having separate customer work spaces for workflows, dashboards, reports, and so on, ensures that customer data is separated and never exposed to other clients.

    Domain separation support in Threat Intelligence by version release

    Domain separation for the Threat Intelligence module (as part of the Security Incident Response application) covers the following product functionality:
    • Security incident observables are directed to the appropriate domain of the user whose ID/ Credential/ Scope generates the incident. The observables extracted from the incident are stored in the domain of the security incident.
    • Setting up of TAXII service profiles to download one or more TAXII collections that offer cyber-threat information feeds. The configuration is stored in the domain under which the profile is being set up.
    • Setting up the download of threat feeds into the IOC repository in the domain under which the configuration is being performed.
    • Creation of attack mode/methods in the domain of the threat intelligence source that provides the information automatically or the domain under which a new attack mode/method is being added manually by the user
    • Creation of cases for long-term investigation of incidents, observables, CIs, users, and indicators of compromise (IOC) associated with the case. The case is stored in the domain created by the user.
    Note:
    In all the above cases, the overarching principles of visibility in separated domains in the NOW Platform apply. As always, an incident in the parent domain can reference artifacts in the child domain, but not the other way around.

    How domain separation works in Threat Intelligence (as part of Security Incident Response)

    Threat Intelligence is part of Security Incident Response in the Professional and Enterprise Tiers, but not with the Standard Tier. Therefore a separate plugin is needed. The Threat Intelligence module (as part of the Security Incident Response application) creates and manages the threat intelligence information associated with security incidents in an organization. The following use cases are domain-separation aware:

    • Creation of security incident observables at the time of incident creation
      • From email parsers (Platform-based, user-reported phishing, custom)
      • From applications in third-party Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) stores
      • Manually keyed in by the SOC analyst
    • Collection of observables from threat feed sources - Threat intelligence sources from TAXII collections
    • Manage security incident observables
      • Associate observables with related indicators
      • Associate observables with security incidents
      • Associate observables with child observables
      • Associate observable to threat feed source
      • Add security annotations to observables
    • Manage indicators of compromise
      • Associate indicators with related observables
      • Associate indicators with attack mode/method
      • Associate indicators with indicator types
      • Associate indicators to threat feed source
      • Add security annotations to indicators
    • Manage cases
      • Create case (manually or from an incident)
      • Edit a new case to add details (choose case type and severity, add incidents, observables, configuration items, users, indicators)
      • Delete a case

    Domain separation setup

    Setting up domain separation for Threat Intelligence does not require any additional steps. All Threat Intelligence tables acquire the Domain column after the instance is domain separated.

    Domain-separated data

    Data can be domain separated, which means:

    • Security incident observables in one domain cannot be viewed from the scope of other domains.
    • Indicators of compromise in one domain cannot be viewed from the scope of other domains.
    • Attack modes/methods associated with one domain cannot be viewed from the scope of other domains.
    • TAXII service profiles associated with one domain cannot be viewed from the scope of other domains.
    • Threat intelligence sources associated with one domain cannot be viewed from the scope of other domains.
    • Cases associated with one domain cannot be viewed from the scope of other domains.
    Threat Intelligence properties are set at the global level and are not, therefore, domain-separated. The settings include:
    • The domain name to retrieve additional information for IP addresses/URLs
    • The API key to be used for retrieval
    • Lookup of local IoC tables before sending to remote scanner
    • Number of days local observables are considered
    • Marking an attack mode/method as inactive when not received from threat intel sources
    • Marking an indicator as inactive when not received from any source for a specified number of days

    Configuration

    All aspects of the threat intelligence functionality configuration are self-contained in a domain-separated environment.

    The following tasks can be configured per domain:

    1. Creation of TAXII service profiles
      • Choose a Discovery service configuration
      • Choose a Collection service configuration - Assign roles to users and groups of users
    2. Creation of threat intelligence sources
      • Configure the REST service that supplies the threat intel information
      • Schedule the download of threat intel information
      • Choose threat details information to assign to the source
    3. Creation of attack mode/methods (manual)
      • Source, malware type, attack mechanism, threat actor type, description, handling, intended effect, first seen, last seen
      • Related indicators, child attack mode/method, associated security incidents
        Note:
        Attack modes/methods are auto-created from the threat feed sources as well.
    4. Setting default lists for the following threat information categories:
      • Attack mechanisms
      • Discovery methods
      • Feeds
      • Indicator types
      • Intended effects
      • Notifications
      • Observable types
      • Rate limit definitions
      • Threat actor types
      • Attack motivations
      • Infrastructure types
      • Malware capabilities
      • Malware types
      • Report types
      • Threat actor roles
      • Tool types

    How tenant domains manage their own application data

    • Tenant domain owners can create their own TAXII service profiles.
    • Tenant domain owners can create their own threat intelligence sources.
    • Tenant domain owners can create their own attack mode/methods.
    • Tenant domain owners can create their own default lists for threat information categories.
    Note:
    Business logic and processes enable threat intelligence source download schedules to be domain separated by instance owner.