How accessible is free information? How much information can you gather when you search for them yourself? Is public data reliable? The answers to these questions revolve around the concept of open source intelligence.
The term may sound too technical, but it’s just a complex-sounding name to a simple concept. Before you scratch your head in confusion, read on to know all about open source intelligence in easy, no-nonsense terms.
What is Open Source Intelligence?
Open source intelligence or OSINT is the information gathered from public data sources utilized for intelligence purposes.
To make it simple, “open source” means freely available, and “intelligence” means the collection of valuable information. Put it all together—and you can say that open source intelligence is the data collected from publicly available sources to achieve a certain goal, whether in the military, business or financial sectors.
Open Source Intelligence: Then and Now
Would you believe that open source intelligence has been around for centuries? United States military agencies coined the term in the 1980s while verifying information gathered during battles. In 1992, the Intelligence Reorganization Act required that objective intelligence should not be biased, and that data must be available for all in both public and non-public platforms.
With the advent of technology, OSINT has changed over the years, and has since excluded non-public data sources which is what the concept of OSINT is originally about. This should not be confused with the open source software movement which is an entirely different concept.
OSINT now encompasses all publicly available sources such as newspapers, magazines, videos, social media posts, web sites, blogs and images. Since the Internet now dominates accessibility of information, the World Wide Web is the largest public source of data. There are many other sources—and for as long as they are accessible by the public, legally shared or created, and are free of charge—they qualify under OSINT.
How Open is Open Source Intelligence?
Just because the military named it as such doesn’t mean open source intelligence is exclusive for tactical use. As previously mentioned, OSINT is just a complicated term for a very simple concept. It only seems confusing because OSINT is highly associated with the Internet and cybercrime-related issues.
Do you use search engines to find answers?
Do you read scientific journals in the library to supplement your paper?
Do you read recipes to learn new dishes?
Do you use GPS and maps to navigate your way through?
Do you watch videos on how to fix broken things?
Do you browse through your friends’ social media profiles to check if they’re alright?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you’re doing the exact same thing everyone else is doing—open source intelligence. You might as well be doing it everyday. In fact, you’re doing it at this very instance. How else did you stumble upon this article?
Information is everywhere—and if you have the right data, you can this use to your advantage to rise up against your competitors. Whether in business, military or for your personal dealings, the right information is a powerful tool.
Open Source Intelligence for Companies
You’ve been doing open source intelligence for a long time. Companies are no different. Executives, managers and supervisors do it all the time in the course of their duties, too, but they are not aware of it.
Because technology now governs business operations, cybercrime has become a universal threat. Do you have your own IT department, or do you employ a third-party IT company to strengthen your cybersecurity defenses? This is where OSINT comes to an immense benefit, but it is only effective when used strategically. This is not just about the simple search and click procedure that you do with Google or Bing. Even if you have the information in front of you, it is the combination of the right OSINT tools and analysis that protects your business from cybercrime.
A weak cybersecurity plan makes it difficult for the company to identify and mitigate risks, and threats go on to become actual problems. The worst case scenario is realizing you’re losing revenue and watching your business fail.
How Open Source Intelligence Works for Business
Open source intelligence works differently in various settings. There are plenty of techniques and software, and not all will work for your business. If you’re hiring a specialist to perform OSINT services, determining your target—whether a person or company—is the initial step. Then you discuss your goals, expectations and the methods by which OSINT will be conducted.
The next step is the actual use of OSINT techniques to gather data, such as:
● Collecting employee information, including full names, contact details and work profiles
● Monitoring information taken from search engines
● Reviewing blogs, websites and forums for target user activities
● Determining domains and IP addresses of the target
● Identifying social media profiles of the target
● Searching for photos and videos of the target in multimedia sharing platforms
● Locating previous and current whereabouts of the target through satellite imagery and GPS
● Extracting cached data from Google
So once you have all the information, do you stop from there? Of course not. As discussed, OSINT is only effective when there is careful analysis of the data, which is the final step. Your OSINT specialist will be able to convert the intelligence data into a readable, less-technical format for the head of the business to understand. This will form the basis by which the management makes decisions to protect your company’s interests.
You may have grasped the concept of open source intelligence by now. As a business owner, head of the company or chief executive, you can use OSINT as an effective strategy against cybercrime. If your company lacks the resources to perform OSINT, security firms and investigators have trained intelligence specialists to do it for your convenience.
They say knowledge is power, and once you have the information in your hands, it is up to you on how to use it to your advantage.
