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OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE
TOOLS AND RESOURCES HANDBOOK.
I am delighted to share
with you the 2020 edition of the OSINT Tools and Resources
Handbook.
Once again, the Handbook
has been revised and updated to reflect the evolution of this discipline, and
the many strategic, operational and technical challenges OSINT practitioners
have to grapple with.
Given the speed of
change on the web, some might question the wisdom of pulling together such a
resource. What’s wrong with the Top 10 tools, or the Top 100? There are only so
many resources one can bookmark after all. Such arguments are not without
merit.
My fear, however, is that
they are also shortsighted. I offer four reasons why. To begin, a shortlist
betrays the widening spectrum of OSINT practice. Whereas OSINT was once the
preserve of analysts working in national security, it now embraces a growing
class of professionals in fields as diverse as journalism, cybersecurity,
investment research, crisis management and human rights. A limited toolkit can
never satisfy all of these constituencies. Second, a good OSINT practitioner is
someone who is comfortable working with different tools, sources and collection
strategies.
The temptation toward
narrow specialisation in OSINT is one that has to be resisted. Why? Because no
research task is ever as tidy as the customer’s requirements are likely to
suggest. Third, is the inevitable realisation that good tool awareness is equivalent
to good source awareness. Indeed, the right tool can determine whether you
harvest the right information. It follows that the more tools you have in your
portfolio, the more flexible your OSINT capabilities are likely to be.
Finally, the process of
compiling this handbook is an intelligence exercise in its own right, alerting
us to where we are at as a community and the challenges we are likely to face
going forward – not least of which are disinformation, the fracturing of the
internet, the proliferation of niche social media platforms, and the urgent
need for better tools to monitor and analyse the content they provide.
Our hope is that this Handbook helps you plug any gaps in your collection efforts and alerts you to the many tools and resources you can consult for better intelligence, including on the discipline of OSINT itself. Of course, the Handbook makes no claim to being complete. Something new will doubtless pop-up tomorrow, and I suspect there are hundreds of tools we haven’t even come across at all. With your help, we can address any omissions. In any event, the usual caveats apply. While every effort has been made to test and validate these resources, we caution that today’s wonder tool may be tomorrow’s security liability.
Thus, whenever testing a new script, application or browser extension, please do so in a secure environment to minimise any risk to your assets or operations. 4 I would like to thank my colleagues at i-intelligence for their efforts in compiling this Handbook. Much of the credit belongs to Aleksandra Bielska who, as our Head of Training, evaluates hundreds of tools every year to determine which ones make it into our courses. I am also indebted to Yves Baumgartner and Vytenis Benetis for routinely updating us on new solutions.
Thanks too are also due to Noa Kurz who worked tirelessly over the summer to help us get this document ready. I close by acknowledging the contributions of the many students, practitioners and Twitter followers we’ve interacted with over the past two years.
Your generosity, insights, suggestions and support are much
appreciated.
❤️Buy me a Coffee : https://www.buymeacoffee.com/larrypage
