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Internet is a huge ocean of information that never stops growing. Any blog entry, any social network post, governmental registries, satellite pictures, and even domain registrations have their place there.
Though all these pieces of data are stored on thousands of separate servers and are not interconnected in any way, they are able to tell incredibly valuable stories.
When security experts, law enforcement officers and researchers study all this publicly available information to find solutions for complicated issues, they perform open source intelligence.
In order to comprehend this notion, it is necessary to define what is meant by open source. “Open source” is not an open source software such as Linux. “Open source” is any information that could be openly obtained by anyone.
The key advantage of open source intelligence is synthesis. One thread in forums looks absolutely worthless. But if an expert combines it with other information sources such as public registries and satellite images, he/she is able to discover company frauds, track down cyber criminals, or locate physical threats. This is how mysteries are solved through clues hidden right before our eyes.
Unlike other intelligence officers, OSINT agents do not break into private systems; rather, they obtain their data from different public venues:
Today, many organizations make use of OSINT to be able to anticipate possible risks.
Security teams analyze the internet to detect possible leaks of corporate data, as well as to find people who might be exposing their private business data online. OSINT also plays an important role in Threat Intelligence Cybersecurity, helping organizations identify potential risks, monitor emerging threats, and strengthen their overall security posture.
The analysts search hacker websites and open-source code bases to identify the new trends in malware and software vulnerabilities.
Organizations investigate their prospective partners or companies to buy in order to be sure that there are no lawsuits or other risks involved.
In summary, one may say that information is a powerful weapon, but it becomes so only when an enterprise is able to distinguish between the relevant information and noise. Using OSINT, organizations are able to identify the actual threats without using any costly monitoring and surveillance systems.
