Types of Open Source Intelligence Collection

Open source intelligence includes all publicly accessible sources of information that can be found online or offline, or widely available on the air and in paper. Open source intelligence collection is accomplished using three main methods: passive, semi-passive, and active.

1. Passive collection

This is the most commonly used type when gathering open source intelligence, and the main purpose is to gather information about a target through publicly available sources without being perceived.

2. Semi-passive collection

This type of harvesting technique is more technical in nature, sending internet traffic to targeted servers in order to obtain general information about them. This traffic should be typical of Internet traffic to avoid drawing any attention to reconnaissance.

3. Active collection

In this type, the investigator interacts directly with the target's systems to gather intelligence about it, but the target is aware of the reconnaissance process and is likely to detect the investigation on an intrusion detection system (IDS) or intrusion prevention system (IPS) trace.

Recommended open source intelligence monitoring system

Knowlesys Intelligence System, a professional open source intelligence monitoring system. The company is at the world's leading level in the field of Internet information collection. With years of experience, it has analyzed and processed thousands of websites and has unique experience in social media information collection.