Active defense is a proactive cybersecurity strategy that goes beyond traditional passive security measures by continuously monitoring, detecting, and responding to threats in real-time. Rather than simply building defensive walls and waiting for attacks to occur, this approach involves dynamic operational measures such as threat hunting to uncover hidden intrusions, deploying deception technologies like honeypots to study attacker behavior, and implementing rapid incident containment strategies.

The methodology integrates threat intelligence gathering to understand adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), enabling security teams to anticipate and disrupt potential attacks before they cause significant damage. By increasing the cost and complexity for attackers while reducing their dwell time within networks, active defense transforms cybersecurity from reactive damage control into an agile, forward-looking operational framework that systematically reduces organizational cyber risk.