Guest blog by Rob Volkert In 2018 there were reportedly 1,244 data breaches totaling over 446 million exposed records, primarily targeting the business sector and health care fields. Cyber security systems may be growing more sophisticated, but so too are attacks designed to collect personal data. There may be a silver lining to breach data for those of us who conduct open source intelligence (OSINT) … Continue reading Basics of Breach Data
The other day I was tagged in a conversation between @WebBreacher and Nick Furneaux, where Nick asked whether it would be possible to calculate the position of a person within a photo. A quick search on the internet returned multiple blogs and websites with calculations based on the size of the camera sensor. But this would only work if an original and uncropped photo was … Continue reading Geometry in Image Forensics
Often i get asked if i’ve got some pointers and tools for OPSEC during online investigations. My primary answer would be first: I can’t give any tips or tradecraft pointers until I know what research questions you are trying to answer. In short, what is your threat model? First of all, one should know where the term OPSEC originates from. OPSEC stands for Operational Security … Continue reading Basic OPSEC Tips & Tricks for OSINT researchers
This blog was inspired by the aftermath of tragedy that happened in Christchurch New Zealand. We discuss how OSINT investigators can report illegal activity or signs of impending danger to others. Continue reading OSINT for Good: Reporting the Bad
Recently, I gave a workshop at the SANS Security Awareness Summit in London, where I showed how one can conduct a simple assessment of him or herself by using some basic OSINT. In this post, I wanted to go a bit more in depth on that subject. Your adversary might be looking into you now. Do you even know what can be found online about … Continue reading Using OSINT for your personal threat model
Whether you’re new to OSINT or an experienced OSINT professional, there is one thing we all have in common, and that is OSINT curiosity. It’s that urge to click on everything and understand how things work in the background. It’s that passion which makes you want to learn more and more, and it’s that investigative curiosity that keeps you digging until you’ve finally found that … Continue reading Five Things You Can Do To Stay OSINT Curious
Ho ho ho and…Merry Christmas! It’s #OSINTuesday, and here’s our first blog post: Python, Your Friendly OSINT Helper! On this week’s blog, we have three smaller blog posts, each of which discusses Python in relation to OSINT. In the first one, Lorand briefly highlights some advantages and disadvantages of automating OSINT with Python and provides useful online learning resources. In the second blog post, @WebBreacher … Continue reading Python, Your Friendly OSINT Helper
Ha! In deciding who to thank for being OSINT curious, I have to go back to 2002 and the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom. I was in the US Army as an Arabic linguist and an analyst. SIGINT was the game then, but as the lead analyst, I wanted to make sure my team knew the context of the events going on so that we could … Continue reading Thank you, Saddam
Hi, my name is Dutch_OsintGuy. Why? Well… I am Dutch, I do OSINT and I am a Guy. I’ve been in the infosec field for over 20 years as an All Source Analyst specialized in Open Source Intelligence. I teach OSINT classes, give lectures and talks about OSINT. When I think of it, basically I just eat, sleep and breathe OSINT 24/7. Clicking shit Automatically … Continue reading Clicking shit for OSINT curious purposes
Hey everyone, my name is Lorand – @LorandBodo – and in this post, I want to tell you my story of how I became OSINT-curious… Several factors sparked my interest, but the story begins when I came out of the military and was thinking about what I should do next in my career. I knew I was interested in international security and terrorism in particular … Continue reading Thank you, Pierre!
