OSINT, What is it?
OSINT, acronym word from English Open Source Intelligence, refers to a set of techniques about collection of data of interest, raw at first sometimes, obtained through publicly available sources such as social networks, newspapers, magazines, blogs, forums, publications and commercial data, for example, that after further analysis, selection, specialized correlation and processing becomes information and knowledge of intelligence. It can be subdivided according to the sources consulted. When the data collected comes from people, it is called HUMINT, while when there is the use of the technique for image tracking, called IMINT. On the other hand, there are other sources that are not commonly imagined, such as movable and immovable (MASINT) and signal interception (SIGINT).
OSINT History
OSINT came from the necessity to capture information during the late 1930s with the advent of the beginning of the Second World War. During the conflict between nations, the US established the FBIS (Foreign Broadcast Information Service), based at Princeton University, which pioneered the strategic and specialized way of collecting useful data through radio listening analysis. Later, in the Cold War, the practice strengthened espionage, expanding the sources of funding and extending it beyond the radio to the TV news.
However, over the years, its need and importance have become obsolete, being rescued only from the year 2001 with the unfortunate and horrifying event of the Twin Towers and Pentagon attack. In this way, the USA founded a subdivision from the CIA named Open source Center highly specialized in OSINT.
How and why is it important?
Today, OSINT is extensively utilized by governmental organizations and many intelligence services of several countries for the purpose of establishing diligence for protection and fighting crimes committed in both the physical and virtual worlds. However, its usefulness goes beyond these functions. It is being applied effectively in the field of cyber defense. Since we are in an age where cybercrimes are easily executed, where small, medium, and large corporations become daily targets of attacks with the aim of raising millions or billions of dollars for the attackers, the investigative role of OSINT becomes crucial as part of a defense strategy for these institutions in terms of obtaining information that can predict an attack, recognize a potential threat, drive incident response decisions, or add to the evidence of a digital incident.
Advantages and Disadvantages of OSINT
Advantages:
- The ease with which data can be obtained
With the constant and immeasurable expansion of the Web, we daily come across new sources and rely on an endless and ever-increasing proliferation of data. People now record important moments through photographs and videos with their smartphones and share them on their social networks every second. The communication is facilitated through messenger apps, news published on official magazines, websites or blogs, payment receipts in financial institution applications and so on. All that is reachable to everyone just by having access to a computer with an internet connection.
- Low risk provided by the survey
As far as security issues are concerned, the practice of OSINT does not offer major risks most of the time, since the queries are made at free points.
- Low-cost
Since the sources of the data are public, and therefore available to everyone, it is not necessary to spend money to have access.
- Getting information in real time
This is yet another advantage provided by OSINT and can be especially useful in emergency crisis situations. With advances in technology, it is possible to transmit and record events at the exact moment they are happening, such as, for example, monitoring the displacement of a person or object via GPS. Organizations can have more assertive decisions with this type of information.
- Data availability in different languages
Another important point is that the wealth of knowledge and data is available in practically the majority of the languages used in the world today, which facilitates a comparison of information in various parts around the globe.
- Flexibility
It can be applied to a wide variety of topics and fields of interest, from data collection about business competitors to threat prevention, and is fully adaptable to the specific needs of each organization.
Disadvantages:
- Massive data production
As stated in the first advantage of OSINT, the ease with which data can be obtained, there is an almost infinite content of information on the web coming from people sharing moments and other things through their social networks.
Everyday, 2.5 quintillion bytes of information are produced and, with the increase and expansion of the internet, that number will keep increasing. All this contributes to increased the difficulty of the process to analyze the findings efficiently and effectively, even though this is also a good thing, since OSINT benefits from having a large amount of information available.
- Unstructured information
The available data can come in a very disorganized form. Therefore, sometimes it is difficult to relate and analyze them to extract intelligence. For this, it requires text analysis and data mining, among other techniques to refine the information in order to explore it with more assertiveness.
- Availability of information
Not all relevant information can be available publically, which may limit the effectiveness of the OSINT technique. Some may be protected by copyright, while other data may be held on private systems or non-digital formats.
- Reliability
Adding to the difficulty of regulating shared content, public spaces are fertile ground for compromising the accuracy and veracity of information, generating an impact that is often negative due to the dissemination of misinformation through the famous fake news. More reliable sources, such as official documents and scientific reports, do not always sufficiently provide the necessary amount of data for the research. Social networks, for example, even if they are not official channels, can be a rich source of providing knowledge, even though they are more prone to generate misinformation. However, what can be done to solve, mitigate or circumvent this problem that can trigger many disastrous consequences?
If you look at it, this is a very pertinent question. Determining the reliability of the information depends on the degree of experience and skill of the analyst.
Another extremely relevant point on this: what are the criteria and methods adopted for the validation of the information, since you cannot leave it on a subjective scale?
- Ethical and moral concerns
While research is conducted in open sources, it is worth noting that, through OSINT, information that is not openly exposed may end up being disclosed and leaked. The results obtained from the research must always respect the privacy of the individuals, keeping intimate matters within the personal sphere.
Remember also that access control barriers and means of authentication cannot be violated in the name of the importance of obtaining data.
- The Risks of Physical and Digital Attacks
One thing that we cannot fail to mention is the fact that just as OSINT is practiced to implement protection and combat crime, it can also be used by malicious agents for the purpose of identifying a target, location, infrastructure or people to prepare an attack. For example, criminals can find out the schedule of an executive from a large company and plan a kidnapping on him or his family.
In the digital realm, the technique can be used to collect information about vulnerabilities in systems and computer networks so that attacks can be orchestrated through the dissemination of phishing and social engineering.
Based on the above, we conclude that, in short, while OSINT serves to prevent and detect threats, if used improperly, it is a facilitator of risks and attacks.
The advantages make it an important and valuable tool for organizations and individuals in a wide variety of situations and contexts. On the other hand, the disadvantages can affect the effectiveness of the technique, but it is worth remembering that no intelligence tool is perfect or completely free from risk. It is worth evaluating the pros and cons of the method and to implement adequate measures on the verification and validation of the information collected, to ensure its reliability and accuracy, but this is a discussion that can be addressed in a future meeting.
Bibliography:
https://revistadetetive.com.br/osint-open-source-intelligence/
https://blogbr.clear.sale/osint
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8954668
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/doc/10.1.1.1.2493
https://openbooks.ffzg.unizg.hr/index.php/FFpress/catalog/view/39/51/2033-1
https://academic.oup.com/cybersecurity/article/8/1/tyac003/6574440