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OSINT Unleashed: 5 Essential Tools for Cyber Investigators
When you’re using open source intelligence the ability to obtain and analyse information is key to achieving your goals. The correct tools will help you streamline this process, giving you the ability to delve deeper in to your open source investigations in a faster, more efficient way. In this article, we’re going to take a quick look at 5 tools that we regularly use to streamline our investigations and extract information that is pertinent to the target of our investigations. While we may have mentioned one or two of these at points in previous articles, it’s because for the most part they are very effective when used properly.
Maltego: Visualizing Data
Maltego is a unique tool, as it enables investigators to visualize data obtained via search. Given that most investigations function around being able to use that data and show it effectively, Maltego has a place in every investigative toolkit. While the learning curve can be a little step for those that haven’t used it before, it’s worth learning as it has many integrations that are able to be used for data matching purposes. With a distinct ability to connect and map the footprint and connections between online sources of data, Maltego can provide you with additional sources of information on your target that you may not easily find elsewhere. Whilst it is a paid program, there is a freeware version that is able to be used by open source analysts and investigators free of charge.
Shodan: Scanning the Internet
If you’ve heard us talk about Shodan before in previous articles, there’s a reason for that. Shodan is awesome, that’s the reason. Standing for Sentient Hyper Optimized Data Access network this tool uses web scraping to profile and display all connected devices to the internet. Whilst it’s a search engine, it’s not your typical search engine as it searches for data from ports and then displays them in different ways. This data can be used for current and historical information on hosts, devices and even countries. With interfaces for both web based and terminal access, you’ll find a way to process shodan data via a method of your choice. Whilst you’ll need to have a paid plan to make the most of it, there is a usable free tier that’s accesible should you want to try it out. Alternately if…
