Hello everyone and welcome to section
2, cold osint introduction. Here. We
are starting our open source intelligence with journey together
as the section name suggests. This
is the introduction will section where we will start with the theory part
of the course. We have to build an excellent theoretical
Foundation to proceed with the Hands-On agenda. First.
We will do a domestication of the
Turn most and that includes different definitions and approaches to
understanding open source. Intelligence here. I
will mention who uses osint and where we will
cover the main types of posts and and how they are applied to
real life. We will also talk about the ethical
side of those and because many questions can and
probably will show up while conducting your osint investigations.
My advice is always to consult yourself
with a lawyer or a legal team and to
protect yourself or your company with a contract.
When conducting cybersecurity activities in general for
customers in a video after the mystification called
the osint cycle or view, we will
cover the ocean steps that each investigation is
consisted of. And for the last lesson, we will
go through the ocean threats and some countermeasures with
that. You can act to improve your company's or
your personal cyber posture.
Let's start the mystifying open source intelligence with a
simple definition. It goes open
source, intelligence or osint is any intelligence produced
from publicly available information collected
exploited and disseminated in a timely manner to
an appropriate audience to address a specific intelligence
requirement immediately inside this
definition. I would like to further explain the words open
source intelligence and disseminated when
you hear about open source.
So when you hear about open-source, a
lot of people immediately think about free
service, free software or data open source
in the context of Open Source. Intelligence does
not in any way relate to open source software, rather
open source means the type of data
and information that is acquired from public sources. They
could be anything from television and print newspapers
to blogs and websites, social media research,
papers business and sales.
Ends and anything you can find online or
offline. We will focus on the online
or the internet side of data Gathering. The term
intelligence has evolved over the years from
military intelligence over business intelligence to
cyber intelligence.
They are all wrapped around information, that is relevant for
some decision-making and disseminated. When I
counter to this word, I was not aware of its meaning since
language, since English language is not my first language, but
it basically means reporting to spread
relevant information. You found and put
it in the context for your customer or a client on
which he, or her can make an informed decision besides
that. Also, these a continuous process of gathering processing
analyzing.
Sharing and getting feedback about some subject. Now.
I would like to share a cool fact that is relevant to
open source intelligence investigations over.
70% of pentesting work, goes
out to the reconnaissance and the ocean phase is
your may be aware been testing or penetration testing
for a longer title, is a task
when a cyber security expert or a pen tester attempts to
find an actively exploit a vulnerability in
a computer system. You can
say it is an authorized simulated cyberattack
on some company or an organization's. It
system to evaluate the security of the system.
This task requires a proper preparation
with the reconnaissance phase and the open source, intelligence
tools and techniques that are the
go-to methods for penetration testers.
The answer to a question who uses osint is quite wide
and I will tell you in a moment. Why is that? But
I would never it down to six or seven groups of
people and businesses. First. I would mention it
people because I'm essentially an an IT
guy. I put hackers in the parentheses
here because they are also. It people only
their end results are not good for anyone. The
main thing here is that you are aware that
all that data and information that you
can gather and use to protect yourself or your organization.
The bad guys can also acquire them
hackers do their homework when picking a Target often
relying on information left publicly exposed to
make decisions about how to attack. Whether
an osint researcher is a hacker looking for vulnerabilities
to exploit or an Al and analysts assessing exposure.
Their core task is to combine public
data. Into an intimate understanding of
a business. Target. Next is
Whose decision making is mostly based on intelligence. And here
is also the open source intelligence model. Just
check out any military or an agency site and
look for open source, intelligence in there. They
all have similar definitions. What
open source intelligence is after military.
I have to mention law, enforcement and private investigators,
whose work depends on. Depends
a lot on good intelligence. And in our case that
is open source intelligence.
Then I have to mention companies and their employees. It
doesn't matter. If we are talking about the
Marketing sales or human resources. They
all use different open source, intelligence techniques,
to acquire information on, which they will do their decision-making.
Most of the time. They aren't even
aware that they are using osint in the first place.
Also, there are parents and teachers.
I personally encourage them to use open
source, intelligence knowledge to guide them about
Social media networks in which their children are
potentially involved in. And lastly, I
would say that every person who uses a search engine is
doing, or some kind of osint. I
will give you an example, you are planning your summer holidays
vacation and you're looking a good place
for a good place to stay somewhere. Well, you
will probably go to Google and look for that place, check.
Its reviews. Maybe also check different sources to
see are the stories and reviews about the place. A
Line with each other, all that searching and Gathering
of relevant information from the Internet is an
ocean technique, simple as that, what are
the types of osint at least two main types?
But also another two that are involved in
the, this type of engaging, the target offensive
defensive active, and passive approach
to open source, intelligence offensive.
Osint is just that someone is collecting, and
using all that available data and information.
To you or your organization to do you harm just
as planning to conduct a Cyber attack based on some
learned information. I will give you a simple example
just as a side note. I realized that
people who are using or planning to use this ocean techniques and
methods for malicious purposes, will attend to
this course as well. We can now have a debate is
this a good or a bad approach to learn how sent
but my opinion is if someone wishes to
do harm he or she will learn it anyway.
But if this knowledge could be used in good purposes and
I think that is the majority, then I think
it is worth it to release this knowledge, to the public, but
to get back but to
get back to our offensive example. Fishing is
probably the simplest example, let's say
your target loves tennis plays, it
recreationally, maybe they did some competition in
the past he or she really enjoys tennis and
they receive a very well formulated.
That contains an invite to tennis event that
the target wanted to visit that invite is,
of course, an attachment Target will
probably click on it and by that execute whatever. Malicious
purpose, detect hat, just like a
ransomware to sum up defensive open
source intelligence. Give the bad guys. A
good starting point to prepare their Cyber attack back
to our types of osint. The
defensive osint gives you a good possibility.
To learn anything that could be used by the bad guys here.
Here. You can also learn what
is exposed out there because you're worried isn't
just the hackers.
Back to our types of posted the defensive often gives
you a good possibility to learn anything that can be used
by the bad guys here. You can also learn
what is exposed out there because you're worried isn't
just a hacker's maybe you have an exposed database out
there which may or may not contain highly classified
information or there's expose device
which could potentially be a back door into your.
It system data leaks are just
that usually something
Gets available on the Internet by mistake and
unprotected server or database. The
next two types, which are listed here is the active
and passive approach to open source. Intelligence as
their name. Suggests active, is the type of
osint which leads digital Footprints of your investigations.
A typical example would be if you
are using a port scanner, but that scanning is
locked by the Target system and the ISP, the
result of an active approach are more
accurate.
Then the best of one but the price is visibility
or better to say lack of invisibility.
While conducting that kind of Investigation concerning
the passive approach. I always remember
the Kali Linux operating system motto, the
quieter. You become, the more you are able
to hear and that is probably an axiom regarding
cybersecurity. Allow me to give you an example, a
simple search engine searching.
A simple search engine activity is pretty quite.
Allow me to give you an example, a simple search engine
usage is pretty quiet. If you wish to enumerate the,
it system exposure of the target.
You may also do that with the third service
like shodhan or senses. We
can freely say that. They are a goldmine services that
we will cover later in the course.
Now, I will just like to make you aware of the Cyber kill chain.
That will develop by Lockheed Martin. Since
open source, intelligence is used in almost every
cyber process. I think that this developed kill
chain makes a good view and understanding
of the full cyber picture. The
Cyber kill chain is created to help organizations develop and
improve their defense in depth strategies to
fight advanced persistent threats. There
are seven main steps through which side
Criminal must go through to execute a
cyberattack. The first step is reconnaissance which
includes open source intelligence activities. This
is just like in the previously mentioned been
testing process.
This involves learning about the Target by harvesting email, addresses
gathering information, using different
dosing techniques and methods. The second step is
called weaponization. And as its name suggests, this
is coupling exportation of vulnerabilities with
the remote access malware into a deliverable payload.
Then the stage of delivery comes
to play where the previously mentioned weapons, is
weapons are sent to the Target, via the
web.
Male USB or by some other social engineering
tactic after delivery comes
the stage of exploitation, where the delivered Goods
actually malicious payload, use the
use the discovered vulnerability to
execute code on a victim system. The
fifth stage is installation. We're installing remote
access malware on the target. Asset is
being done. Here. We can talk of victims. Here.
We can talk about a victim sbrick station.
None or a server or some other device?
In the sixth stage called command and control. This
is the stage where for an example, an outside server
is communicating with the deployed weapons inside
the target Network and buy that providing a
continuous access to the system and
finally actions on objectives. This
is the last stage where the original objective is being achieved
that can occur. That last
stage, can include exfiltration or destruction of
data or intrusion, or
Or.
Or intrusion of another Target. I
recommend checking this cyber kill chain in more detail, because
with the better understanding of this methodology, you
will gain a better insight into how osint and
it's related. Cyber topics can and
are used in the real world.
Now we come to the question or statement whole whatever
you want to call it. Ethics behind osint. A
question of Ethics in the context of Open
Source. Intelligence has the potential to become a really long
debate. And that is without the legal side.
That is even more important. With the questions. Like,
is my ocean to work even legal and can it get
in trouble for doing this. Well, I can only
give you advice how to proceed with this topic. As I
have said before, and probably,
Repeat this in the later, lessons always consult a
lawyer or a legal team when conducting this kind of
Investigations because you can get logged and maybe
get yourself digitally in the wrong place. But
all that can happen at a good time to be blamed for something
that you wasn't even aware. That could happen. I
put a picture of a shady alley where two persons meet and
I think that to some extent, this represents
the modus operandi of some Austin to techniques. I
can give you a good example while you
You do your old sent investigation for
some company or a customer. You encounter an
exposed database, which is clearly classified as
secret and confidential. Probably that kind
of finding is not just a question of Ethics. Will
you use it? It can become a legal question with
which you can get in some serious trouble. What will
you do? Will you immediately notify the database owner
to make them aware that they have a data leak? Like
this? But in a discreet way, or will it
use it?
Some Advantage. Well, the answer here is more than evident.
If you're a good guy. Again, please
be careful while conducting your open source, intelligence investigations,
if you got a bet, if
you, if you get a feeling you're doing something you
weren't supposed to do, or simply have
a bad feeling about something. Then that is probably true. Always
consult yourself with a legal team
to be sure. And now in the
next video we will cover the open source intelligence side.
Cycle of where you will get a greater Insight,
how the whole osint investigation looks like. So
see you in the next video.