I think the major problem for organizations like MSTIC is that the vast majority of information they have access to came from other companies under strict confi

I think the major problem for organizations like MSTIC is that the vast majority of information they have access to came from other companies under strict confidentiality agreements. This is the norm in information security, most intelligence sharing goes through large vendor security centers or ISACs. In order to encourage/facilitate that sharing, these organizations require all of their members to agree to non-disclosure regimes (the "traffic light protocol" classification scheme is common in ISACs). It creates a bureaucratic situation where a company might have a great deal of data points to base an attribution on, but is prevented from disclosing 95% of them... not necessarily out of concern about source protection, but simply by contract with the data source(s). There's a long-running controversy within the industry about whether or not this situation is productive. The confidentiality agreements make corporations more willing to disclose data due to reduced risk of reputational damage and liability. But it also tends to make research and open communication more difficult and vague. The federal government has been through basically the exact same controversy over the last two decades regarding intelligence sharing, and to further complicate things it's common for there to be government elements (e.g. DHS) involved in these circles that mean there are also confidentiality agreements between government agencies and private industry that enforce many of the same rules. At its core, this comes out of a fundamental tension of liability and the law: is it better to do research that will produce damning material in lawsuit discovery, or to avoid doing the research and remain ignorant to the problem? Various industries have various half-solutions to this problem (e.g. Patient Safety Organizations in healthcare that are exempt from discovery), but the dominant one in information security reflects the roots of the industry in the intelligence community: anonymity of sources and confidentiality of information.