Open Source Intelligence: What It Is, Why You Need It

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OSINT is intelligence “drawn from publicly available material”, according to the CIA. Most intelligence experts extend that definition to mean information intended for public consumption.

OSINT is information that can be accessed without specialist skills or tools, although it can include sources only available to subscribers, such as newspaper content behind a paywall, or subscription journals.

The CIA says that OSINT includes information gathered from the internet, mass media, specialist journals and research, photos, and geospatial information. Most of these sources were used in the Bellingcat MH17 investigation.

OSINT does not require its exponents to hack into systems or use private credentials to access data. Viewing someone’s public profile on social media is OSINT; using their login details to unearth private information is not. In intelligence agency terms, OSINT is also information drawn from non-classified sources.

Courtesy of : Siobhan Kelleher

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