Since World War II, highly trained agents in intelligence agencies have monitored open source information such as radio broadcasts, newspapers, and market fluctuations. Given the number and variety of easily accessible data sources today, almost anyone can participate in open source intelligence gathering.
Public sources from which OSINT researchers collect data points include:
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internet search engine Google, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex, etc.
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Print and online news media Newspapers, magazines, news sites, etc.
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social media accounts on platforms such as Facebook, X, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
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Online forums, blogs, and Internet Relay Chat (IRC).
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dark webencrypted areas of the Internet that are not indexed by search engines.
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online directory Phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, etc.
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official document Births, deaths, court documents, business documents, etc.
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government records Meeting records, budgets, speeches, press releases, etc. issued by local, state, and federal/central governments.
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academic research Includes articles, dissertations, and journals.
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technical data IP addresses, APIs, open ports, web page metadata, etc.
However, before you start collecting data from OSINT sources, you need to establish a clear purpose. For example, security professionals using OSINT first decide what insights they are trying to uncover and what exposed data will yield the desired results.
After collecting public information, you must process it to filter out unnecessary or redundant data. Security teams can analyze sophisticated data and create actionable intelligence reports.
