In cybersecurity, OSINT or Open Source Intelligence, has long been a key part of getting ahead of potential threats. Let’s dive into what it is, how it’s used, as well as limitations and modern solutions.
What is OSINT?
Derived from the acronym "Open Source Intelligence," OSINT is a methodology used to gather intelligence from publicly available sources. This could include anything from news articles, public databases, and social media posts to government reports, academic papers, and published research.
In essence, OSINT revolves around leveraging the vast expanse of online data that doesn’t require authentication or specialized access privileges. Defenders seek to extract valuable insights to make informed decisions to get ahead of threats.
The varied landscape of OSINT
OSINT has its roots in the US intelligence community, meaning it can serve diverse purposes across different domains, tailored to specific objectives and industries. In non-cyber security contexts, intelligence agencies might utilize OSINT to monitor global events, track geopolitical developments, or even survey urban environments using tools like Google Street View.
When OSINT made its way to cybersecurity, OSINT took on a more targeted role, focusing on gathering information related to threats, vulnerabilities, and security issues.
There are three major categories of information defenders find valuable:
- Vulnerabilities: Vulnerabilities are potential weaknesses identified in software systems. Vulnerabilities are often discovered by security researchers, discovered in the wild, or discovered by a breach.
Defenders find this information valuable to figure out mitigation strategies and how to defend against it.
- Malware: Once threat groups gain access into companies, they deploy malware and intrusion techniques such as Trojans, viruses, spyware, ransomware, etc. to maintain access to the company.
Defenders find this information valuable to know what tools are used and how they steal data to protect against it.
- Threat Actors: This intelligence focuses on tracking the activity of threat actors, specifically who is conducting attacks and their motives.
Defenders find this information valuable to know if they are susceptible to threat actors who may target their victims based on industry, geography, or technology.
The value of OSINT in cybersecurity
The value of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) on paper is that it offers an opportunity for companies to get ahead of their threats.
OSINT enables organizations to stay informed about emerging threats. By correlations in OSINT data, organizations can anticipate threats and adapt their cybersecurity strategies accordingly. OSINT ultimately gives defenders a way to best inform their decision making.
Challenged and limitations
Despite its utility, harnessing OSINT effectively poses several major challenges. OSINT lacks a centralized repository or aggregator of data. And for all the sources that do provide OSINT, they each follow their own format for providing data. Furthermore, leveraging OSINT necessitates active engagement with online communities and sources and continuous exploration of new sources to stay on top of emerging threats. For companies with few resources and manpower, OSINT is virtually impossible to effectively utilize.
Moreover, the sheer volume and diversity of online content mixed with the fast and ever evolving threat landscape can overwhelm even the most seasoned analysts and equipped teams. Parsing through thousands of websites, blogs, and forums to extract relevant intelligence requires massive amounts of time and resources. Even using paid threat intelligence requires manual labor to find useful data and to correlate threats to the company. Not to mention, these solutions are often extremely pricey.
Fletch: Simplifying OSINT for Cybersecurity Defenders
Enter Fletch, a pioneering platform that seeks to make OSINT digestible, actionable, and timely, particularly for cybersecurity professionals with limited resources and time.
Fletch uses natural language processing and machine learning to scan the threat landscape daily, effectively replacing the need for manual labor and speeding up the process exponentially. Then Fletch organizes the information into organized, in-depth records that includes a summary, list of IOCs and targets, history, mitigation advice, and generated comms. With Fletch in place, the limitations of using OSINT are displaced, leaving only the value of living ahead of threats.
Sign up for the Fletch waitlist to utilize the world’s first OSINT based cybersecurity AI.
