Pentesting

• Open-source intelligence (OSINT)


  Analysis of publicly available information from a wide range of sources to produce actionable intelligence
• Sources of OSINT


  • Internet
  • Social media platforms
  • News outlets
  • Public records
  • Academic publications
• Social media open-source intelligence (SOCMINT)

  Techniques and tools that allow for the collection and analysis of information from social media platforms
• Types of social media data

  • User-posted content
  • Metadata
  • Interactions
• User-posted content


  Information or data that users share on social media, such as text, videos, images, and links
• Metadata


  Data that provides information about other data, such as timestamps, location data, tags, hashtags, user profile information, and device information
• Interactions


  The ways that users engage with each other and other pieces of content on social media, such as likes, reactions, shares, retweets, comments, replies, mentions, tags, follows, and unfollows
• OSINT investigation


  1. Perform username search

  2. Conduct reverse image search

  3. Analyze Facebook posts

  4. Investigate Instagram and Twitter
• With great power comes great responsibility when using OSINT tools
• OSINT tools should be used ethically and responsibly to protect privacy and avoid misuse
• Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)

  Intelligence produced from publicly available sources that is collected, exploited, and disseminated in a timely manner to an appropriate audience for the purpose of addressing a specific intelligence requirement

  
• OSINT


  • Not exclusively used by the intelligence community, but by a number of other parties as well
• Intelligence cycle


  1. Collection

  2. Processing

  3. Exploitation

  4. Dissemination

  
• Data


  Raw information
• Information


  Data that has been processed and organized
• Intelligence


  Information that has been analyzed and interpreted to provide insights
• Surface web


  • Content is easily accessible and indexed by search engines
• Deep web


  • Content can only be accessed by direct connection using URL or IP address, not indexed by search engines
• Darknet


  • Small peer-to-peer networks that require special software, configuration, and authorization to access
• Dark web


  • Sites and hidden services only reachable by using the darknet
• The rise of the Internet fundamentally changed the nature of public information
• Today's behavior to voluntarily share personal information is in stark contrast to the reactions in the face of the 1983 German census where plans to survey some personal data were met with mass protest
• OSINT use cases


  • Intelligence
  • Journalism
  • Recruiting
  • Law Enforcement Agencies
  • Penetration Testing
  • Social Engineering and Human Intelligence
  • Public Tracing
  • Missing Person And Rescue Search
  • Civil Protection
  • Cyber Risk Management
  • Preparation of a criminal act
  • To google
• The common use of the verb 'to google' highlights that the exploitation of public sources does not rely on a certain skill set or background
• To google


  A basic tool to access information available in surface web is the usage of a web search engine with Google being the most popular one
• Conducting an online search has became so common that there is a verb to describe this action, to google
• The verb 'to google' was included in the standard dictionary of the German language, the Duden, in 2004
• An addition to the Duden is only done after a selection process where the candidate word has to prove that it is used regularly over a longer period of time in different contexts
• The common use of the verb 'to google' highlights that the exploitation of public sources does not rely on a certain skill set
• Experienced investigators may produce elaborated results beneficial to a broad number of different subjects, but also untrained people are able to derive certain information
• The versatility of possible applications combined with its availability to (almost) everyone makes OSINT a powerful method
• Open Source Intelligence Methodology

  1. Direction

  2. Collection

  3. Processing

  4. Analysis

  5. Dissemination

  6. Feedback

  
• Direction


  Planning and preparation before the actual investigation initiates
• Collection


  Focuses on the collection of data and is described as gathering data
• Processing


  Serves different purposes depending on the underlying model, including transforming collected data into information
• Analysis


  Converts information into intelligence, including the integration, evaluation, and analysis of the gained information to produce a result meeting the requirements

  
• Dissemination


  Distributes the results of the investigation to the client
• Feedback


  Concludes the investigation, including the evaluation of feedback to improve processes and archiving of results
• Data


  The output achieved during the collection phase, considered as a set of facts without any explanation or analysis
• Information


  Produced by processing the collected data, including translation, decryption, or format conversion, filtering, correlating, classifying, clustering, and interpreting the given data