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Practical OSINT Strategies in Daily Cybersecurity


OSINT means Open-Source Intelligence which is an important skill for professionals. To understand what it means in the practical life we need to measure what will be our scope in the future. When we decide to use OSINT, we need to clarify what does it mean. Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) refers to the process of gathering, analysing, and utilizing publicly available information to gain actionable insights. The main aspect of it is the accessibility and cost-effectiveness - it relies on information that are readily available to anyone with the skills to find and interpret it.


What does Open-Source mean?

The term "open source" does not pertain to open-source software but to any information that are legally and openly available to the public.


What types of information can be available in public and used it?

Basically everything. As mentioned earlier, what is readable can be a source. Every finding by the internet search engines can be a source as well (like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo). Every one of them works different. To find some type of information can be difficult. It’s hardly recommended to use multiple engines to collect data.


The perspective of the cybersecurity - when should it be used?

Most of the actor (both defensive and attacking) are use it. Above a certain level it is inevitable. For example, an organization can, be targeted by advanced hacker groups. Before the direct attack, the group need to collect information under the stage of “weaponization”. That type of information are vulnerabilities of public services, open ports, end-of-life software solutions, or unpatched vulnerabilities. This is deeply technical but very important to identify it. It is a part of vulnerability management.

Sticking to the attacking side's point of view there is another perspective to use the technique.  The most common attack is phishing. It is easy to do and easy to achieve goals with it. Fortunately, most of the e-mail systems can identify the low-level attacks and filter them. When a malicious actor is on the field, they will know how to avoid the defensive systems and deliver the e-mail for the right target. To identify the target is the moment to adapt the OSINT knowledge. When professionals need an information they will know, where will find it, and how they search for it. In that aspect, they will know, where to find corporate related e-mail addresses or worst case, they will have a potential list of the members of the board. It is a risk and the potential impact on the business is huge. The latter is a classic social engineering-based technique, called whaling. These are only two example, but there are many.


In cybersecurity OSINT can be used for:

1. Proactive Threat Hunting: e.g. tracking vulnerabilities, actor related information's

2. Incident Response: e.g. find connections between technical indicators of an attacks.

3. Dark Web Monitoring: e.g. monitoring threat actors, and forums.

4. Brand and Reputation Management: e.g. detecting fake profiles and potential defamations

5. Physical Security Assessments: e.g. use geospatial data and public imagery to evaluate potential physical vulnerabilities.

OSINT must always be used within legal and ethical boundaries. It should not involve unauthorized access or infringe on privacy. Staying compliant with data protection laws and ethical guidelines ensures that OSINT remains a powerful yet responsible tool.


By applying OSINT in these scenarios, cybersecurity professionals can improve their situational awareness, respond faster to threats.

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