Who would be interested in open source intelligence?

Open source intelligence can be beneficial to different individuals and organizations. Here is a brief overview of what motivated them to search for open source intelligence resources.

1. Government:

Government agencies, especially the military, are considered the largest users of open source intelligence. Governments require open source intelligence sources for different purposes. For example, national security, counter-terrorism, cyber-stalking of terrorists, understanding domestic and foreign public opinion on different topics, providing decision makers with needed information to influence their internal and external policies, and instant translation of different events happening in foreign countries.

2. International organizations:

International organizations such as the United Nations use open source intelligence sources to support peacekeeping operations around the world. Humanitarian organizations, like the International Red Cross, use open source intelligence resources to assist their relief efforts in times of crisis or disaster. They use open source intelligence intelligence to protect their supply chains from terrorist groups by analyzing social media sites and Internet messaging applications to predict future terrorist actions.

3. Law enforcement agencies:

Police use open source intelligence sources to protect citizens from abuse, identity theft, and other crimes. This can be done by monitoring social media channels for interesting keywords and images to help prevent crime from escalating.

4. Commercial company:

Business companies use open source intelligence sources to investigate new markets, monitor competitors' activities, plan marketing campaigns, and predict anything that might affect their current operations and future growth.

Businesses also use open source intelligence intelligence for other non-financial purposes, such as:

a. To prevent data leakage. Exposure of confidential information and security breaches of their networks are responsible for future cyber threats.

b. Help them protect their financial interests, reputation, and customer base by analyzing open source intelligence sources inside and outside the organization and then combining this information with other information to develop effective cyber risk management strategies.

5. Penetration testers and black hat hackers/criminal organizations:

Open source intelligence is widely used by hackers and penetration testers to gather intelligence about specific targets online. It is also considered a valuable tool to assist in social engineering attacks. The first phase of any penetration testing methodology begins with reconnaissance (in other words, open source intelligence).

6. Privacy-conscious people:

These are regular people who might want to check how outsiders can break into their computing devices, and what the ISP knows about them. They also need to know the extent of their online exposure to close any security gaps and delete any private data that may have been released inadvertently. Open source intelligence is a great tool to see how your digital identity is revealed to the outside world, allowing you to maintain your privacy. In cases of impersonation, individuals can also use open source intelligence to prevent identity theft.

7. Terrorist organizations:

Terrorists use open source intelligence to plan attacks, gather information about targets before attacking them (e.g. when surveying target locations using satellite imagery like Google Maps), attract more fighters by analyzing social media sites, obtain incidental military information , and promote globally using different media channels.