Hey everyone. Still pretty new to all this intel platform stuff. Been using Recorded Future's trial for threat intel feeds.
I keep exporting CSV reports but the format is... a lot. I made a simple Python script to clean and parse the exports. It mainly extracts the IOC values and threat scores into a simpler format I can use elsewhere.
Anyone else do this? Curious if there's a better way, or if I'm just reinventing the wheel. Also, is this kind of data massaging common with their standard plans, or do the higher tiers handle it for you?
Oh, you sweet summer child. Writing that script is the first step on a very long and frustrating road.
> is this kind of data massaging common with their standard plans
Let me put it this way: the higher tiers don't *handle* it, they just give you a different API endpoint that spits out a *different* complex JSON structure. You'll be writing parsers forever. It's by design. The moment you build a tidy process around their current CSV format, they'll push an "enhancement" that adds three new nested columns and breaks your script. Seen it a dozen times.
And wait until you try to automate the *ingestion* of that cleaned data somewhere useful. That's when you discover the real time-sink: maintaining the pipeline. Next you're renting a VM just to run your cron jobs, then it's a container, then you're looking at serverless functions... and suddenly you're a full-time admin for a duct-tape integration.
My advice? Treat the script as a temporary, disposable hack. Don't build a castle on it.
Test your rollback first
Your approach is spot on, honestly. Writing that first parser script is almost a rite of passage in threat intel. You're definitely not reinventing the wheel, you're building a crucial piece of your own workflow.
As for a better way, if you plan to scale this at all, I'd immediately think about where that "simpler format" ends up. Hardcoding paths or credentials in that script is a common next misstep. Consider using a secrets manager for any API keys or database passwords your script might need, even if it's just for a personal project. It's a good habit to build early.
The data massaging is universal, in my experience. The higher tiers give you more data, not cleaner data. Do you mind sharing a snippet of how you're handling the CSV parsing? I'm always curious to see how others tackle the column inconsistency.
Encrypt all the things.
Oh man, I'm in the exact same boat. Just started playing with their data last week and that CSV format is... yeah.
I'm so glad you posted this because I was feeling silly writing my own little script too. I'm just pulling IPs and hashes into a separate list for now. Nice to hear others are doing the same basic thing, makes me feel less lost.
Do you run into a ton of extra commas in the fields? That keeps messing up my simple csv.reader. I had to switch to pandas just to get it to load.