Data is a valuable currency in the digital world. It can also be a dangerous weapon. To stay ahead of emerging threats and keep data out of the wrong hands, security professionals rely on open-source intelligence (OSINT) – the practice of collecting and analyzing information from publicly available sources – to produce intelligence they can turn into action.
OSINT is a strategy often understood through the lens of surface web searches. But the most critical insights security analysts gain tend to come from public data that is hidden under multiple layers of the dark web. This is where darknet OSINT tools prove themselves indispensable and transformative. They can turn raw, chaotic data into a protective shield.
What Do OSINT Tools Actually Do?
OSINT tools are all about discovery, aggregation, and synthesis. Most platforms, like the one provided by DarkOwl, use a collection of tools together. The combined package manually and automatically tracks adversaries across various standard and dark web properties, including social media, encrypted chat channels, and forums. With the harvested data, analysts can:
- Identify exposure – Analysts can identify leaked credentials and stolen code. They can find proprietary documents before they are utilized to launch an attack.
- Monitor sentiment – Analysts can detect early warning signs of hacktivist or government-sponsored hacking by paying attention to brand sentiment.
- Trace threats – Analysts can trace potential threats by linking IP addresses, domains, and social handles. Those links might be applicable to a single threat actor or group as well.
In its most basic form, OSINT points security teams toward potential threats by revealing clues about individuals or groups and their activities. Combined with other threat intelligence tools like threat actor profiling, OSINT becomes a formidable weapon in the fight against highly sophisticated cybercrime.
What Should a Comprehensive OSINT Platform Include?
An OSINT platform is not a single tool. Rather, it is a collection of tools that all work together to get the job done. DarkOwl says a comprehensive platform should include the following five things at a minimum:
- Deep indexing capabilities – A comprehensive platform should be capable of crawling and indexing even the deepest recesses of the darknet.
- Messaging app monitoring – Because so much of today’s cybercrime activity has migrated to social messaging apps, a comprehensive platform must be able to monitor these apps.
- Automated credential monitoring – A comprehensive platform should have a dedicated tool that automatically and constantly scans the dark web looking for leaked credentials, email addresses, etc.
- Entity visualization – A platform should have a tool capable of taking a single data point and visualizing connections across the entire web.
- Historical archiving – The Darknet is a volatile and constantly evolving space. Therefore, a comprehensive platform should have the capability to archive nuked sites so that analysts can study a threat actor’s behavior, even if he tries to scrub the evidence.
The key to all of this is taking incredibly large amounts of data and condensing it down into relevant points that can be used to generate actionable recommendations. Otherwise, intelligence gathering becomes an exercise in curating an overwhelming amount of data that analysts don’t know what to do with.
OSINT Enhances Security Posture
So, why go to all the trouble of investing in and deploying OSINT tools? It is quite simple, really. OSINT enhances an organization’s security posture. OSINT tools make it possible for an organization to abandon reactive security in favor of a more proactive approach.
In doing so, security teams take the fight to threat actors instead of waiting for their adversaries to come to them. It matters because in cybersecurity, the best defense is often an aggressive offense.