What is OSINT?
OSINT, often confused with the mere collection of information, is a specific type of tradecraft requiring gathering, process, and analysis, which guides stakeholders and increases efficiency in the decision-making process. Hence, prerequisites for OSINT are that it must be actionable and a product offering knowledge. Often narrowed down to text-based data, OSINT may and does often include data derived from pictures, videos, sound files, and meta-data.
“OSINT may and does often include data derived from pictures, videos, sound files, and meta-data”
Moreover, OSINT is legally obtainable from the public domain, which shall not be confused with being available to the public. In the increasingly complex information landscape of today’s digital environment, there are several barriers to entry, which brings challenges in terms of rapid analysis cycles and faster decision-making processes.
Key Benefits of OSINT
OSINT offers several critical benefits for law enforcement and military operations. Even though OSINT as a force-multiplier is highly dependent on the sophistication of the tradecraft, the correct use of trained personnel utilizing the benefits of OSINT will inevitably increase the prospects for rapid operations, enabling arrests or targeting of hostile individuals, groups, and networks. Apart from such crucial value, OSINT offers access to a wide range of information through social media platforms, online forums, news articles, government databases, and more covert information on the dark and deep web.
“The correct use of trained personnel utilizing the benefits of OSINT will inevitably increase the prospects for rapid operations”
Moreover, OSINT enables real-time updates on emerging trends, threat assessments, and cost-efficient solutions compared to traditional intelligence methods. In sum, these benefits include:
- Enhanced threat detection and early warning capabilities.
- Access to real-time and up-to-date information.
- Cost-effective intelligence gathering.
- Identification of potential vulnerabilities and risks.
- Improved decision-making and strategic planning.
- Increased efficiency in investigations.
- Support for arrests and military targeting.
- Verification and validation of information from various sources.
- Insights into public sentiment and social dynamics.
The current state of OSINT: Observations from the War in Ukraine
OSINT in the ongoing war in Ukraine has proven great value for Ukraine’s defensive and offensive operations. For example, they utilize the opportunities from online channels like Telegram and social media platforms, including mapping enemy positions and movements, gathering information on threat actors in cyberspace such as Killnet and other pro-Russian hacktivists, and countering disinformation and other Russian influence.
Moreover, developing infrastructure to conduct network-centric operations, such as commercial satellites, has enabled an extension of reach regarding Ukraine’s situational awareness and ability for surveillance and reconnaissance. Increasing the speed of action through OSINT has enabled Ukrainian forces, to some extent, to outpace their Russian adversary.
Furthermore, OSINT has proven to be a force multiplier as every Ukrainian citizen can act as a sensor and part of a broader network-centric capability, enabling an information advantage. Crowdsourcing and standardized chatbots have allowed Ukrainian citizens to report Russian units and locations combined with various viewpoints around information. Rather than taking a single piece of information and estimating its accuracy, the mass of information can crowdsource, enabling analysts to draw together alternative views. This network has enabled data availability processing and evaluation to provide additional insight, which, the longer the conflict, the more adept the Ukrainians have become at harnessing the quantity of information to pull insights from as many sensors as possible.
Problems associated with OSINT: Information Overload
Even though OSINT has proven to be a crucial add-on to existing intelligence work conducted by law enforcement and military organizations, its opportunities bring challenges. Information overload is a central problem and natural consequence of the vast publicly available information from data sources containing large amounts of text, pictures, videos, or sound files. Hence, there is an evident need to identify specific sources of relevant information to minimize time spent accessing and collecting data.
“There is an evident need to identify specific sources of relevant information to minimize time spent accessing and collecting data”
Moreover, processes must confirm dispatch and its usefulness and adequate analysis, making intelligence actionable. A core in Paliscope’s day-to-day work is to address such challenges and to provide solutions for law enforcement and military organizations worldwide to make the processes from collection to analysis as efficient as possible and increase the prospects for efficient operations and decision-making. YOSE (Your Own Search Engine) is a Paliscope-developed platform explicitly developed to tackle today’s challenges and offers decision-makers the ability of rapid processing, enabling efficient analysis through scaling and automated indexing.
Why is this important? The Future of OSINT: A Brief Assessment
As the information-driven environment continuously expands, so does the concept of OSINT. It is important to note that what was once restricted to government agencies is today accessible to the public. Hence, criminals, terrorists, and other hostile actors increasingly turn to OSINT capabilities as a part of their day-to-day operations. With that knowledge in mind, law enforcement agencies and military organizations must develop and maintain sophisticated OSINT capabilities to stay one step ahead.
Notably, the rise of information warfare and the need for intelligence on digital fronts will likely continue to make OSINT an even more crucial resource for organizations dealing with a state’s national security. Various examples and case studies show it can provide valuable information essential in making informed decisions about foreign policy, intelligence operations, and military strategy. Through automated solutions such as YOSE, organizations optimize the prospects to embrace OSINT opportunities fully. YOSE increases their ability to understand and respond to global security threats, support military operations, and gain a deeper understanding of conflicts, such as the ongoing war in Ukraine or hostilities linked to the recent military coups in West Africa, more rapidly.
“Through automated solutions such as YOSE, organizations optimize the prospects to embrace OSINT opportunities fully”
The increasingly globalized information-driven landscape that mainly constitutes the operational environment in which law enforcement and military organizations operate calls for increasingly adaptive and agile methods to gather accurate and timely intelligence for strategic decision-making.
About Oscar
Oscar is a cyber security analyst at Paliscope, mainly focusing on the overlap between threat actors in the digital and physical environment. His primary interest lies in the interconnection between geostrategic trends and the evolving and dynamic threat surface and its implications for organizations in the private and public sectors to promote societal resilience. Moreover, Oscar has extensive experience analyzing and monitoring asymmetric threat actors, mainly terrorist organizations in the Sahel region and Russia-affiliated proxies.
