It’s only natural that we feel the need to weed out what’s most valuable in the age of information digitalization. Organizations use a variety of paid and unpaid methods and services to accomplish this. The latter group is part of the open-source intelligence (OSINT) area, and it can be extremely useful.
What are OSINT tools?
OSINT stands for open-source intelligence, and it refers to a collection of data or information from public sources such as firms, organizations, or persons, as we described earlier.
In general, OSINT approaches have been developed using publicly accessible information collected, used, and released at the right moment to the right audience to direct a specific intelligence requirement.
Why are OSINT tools needed?
After learning what OSINT tools are, the issue of why we need OSINT tools emerges. Assume you’re in an incident where you need to locate accurate information on the internet about a specific topic. And you must do so in two ways: first, you must analyze and obtain all relevant knowledge about the topic; this is laborious and time-consuming.
As a result, we hope that it is now apparent to you that it saves a lot of time and that consumers receive accurate information without having to remember it.
In light of this, these are the top ten OSINT tools for 2021:
OSINT framework:
It is a website that lists data discovery and gathering tools for practically any source or platform. The OSINT Framework application includes over 30 categories of prospective data such as the dark web, social networks, and harmful file analysis, allowing you to view the many ways you could obtain such data.
It is not a tool that should be installed on users’ servers; it is a constructive approach to obtain important information by searching freely available search engines, resources, and applications on the internet.
Information.com
Information.com is a powerful reverse search tool that pools data from public records, as well as in-depth digital searches. When you look up someone on Information.com, you’ll find out their current and past addresses, age, if they’re married or divorced, their criminal records, and even links to their dating profiles and social media accounts. This is an easy way to quickly find out if someone is who they say they are
GHunt
GHunt is a new OSINT tool that lets users extract information from any Google Account using an email. The information that GHunt extracts include:
- Owner’s name
- Google ID
- If the account is a Hangouts Bot
- Last time the profile was edited
- Possible YouTube channel
- Possible other usernames
- Public photos (P)
- Phones models (P)
- Phones firmware
- Installed Softwares
- Google Maps reviews
- Possible physical location
- Events from Google Calendar
- Activated Google services (YouTube, Photos, Maps, News360, Hangouts, etc.)
Spiderfoot:
It is an OSINT tool for scraping data on personal, network, and commercial entities from over 100 data sources.
It is another open-source program in the OSINT Tools GitHub repository available for both Linux and Windows. It was created in the Python programming language. It can run on any virtual platform as it has been pre-qualified to ask more than 100 OSINT experts questions to gain intelligence on emails, IP addresses, names, domain names, and other topics.
Google Dorks:
Google Dorks is a data querying approach rather than a technology. It involves employing advanced search arguments in Google Search to query information. Advanced operators in the search engine are used to collect data such as admin login pages, bank account credentials, email lists, confidential documents, and so on. “Dorking” is the term for using these sophisticated operators.
Shodan:
Shodan is a sophisticated and effective search engine that hackers use to look through all exposed assets. It provides you with accurate results that are more logical and affiliated with security experts.
Essentially, this program aids the security analyst in identifying the target and testing it for a variety of vulnerabilities, services, passwords, ports, and other factors. Furthermore, it allows for greater flexibility in community searches.
N2YO.com
Allowing you to track satellites from afar, N2YO is a great tool for space enthusiasts. It does so by featuring a regularly searched menu of satellites in addition to a database where you could make custom queries along the lines of parameters such as the Space Command ID, launch date, satellite name, and an international designator. You could also set up custom alerts to know about space station events along with a live stream of the International Space Station(ISS)!
Yandex Images
The Russian counterweight to America’s Google, Yandex has been extremely popular in Russia and offers users the option to search across the internet for thousands of images. This is in addition to its reverse-image functionality which is remarkably similar to Google.
A good option included within is that you could sort images category wise which can make your searches more specific and accurate.
Tip: In my personal experience; Yandex image search results are far more accurate and in-depth than Google Images.
Nuwber:
Nuwber is a search engine that swiftly finds and verifies people by providing accurate data. Nuwber can help users find an old friend, coworker, or acquaintance with whom they have lost touch over time.
Nuwber gathers information from a range of public papers and consumer databases to provide both historical and current public data. Nuwber can assist users in obtaining contact information and verifying individuals in their personal lives.
Maltego:
It is a product of Paterva and also a part of Linux. The primary purpose of this is to perform essential research towards various targets with the guidance of some in-built transforms.
If you wish to use Maltego, you must first register on the Paterva website. After completing the registration process, you can either design your own machine or just run the machine to obtain the aim.
TinEye
TinEye is the original reversed image search engine, and all you have to do is submit a proper picture to TinEye to get all the required information, like where it has come from and how it has been used.
Instead of using keyword matching, it uses a variety of approaches to complete its tasks, including picture matching, signature matching, watermark identification, and numerous other databases to match the image.
HaveIBeenPwned
With database breaches happening every day, it’s only a matter of time before your data also gets exposed. Therefore, keeping a check is vital to ensure you can change your credentials and other details in time. HIBP lets you exactly do so by entering either your password or email address.
Conclusion
Though the list can go on and on, the fact is that it all depends on the correct tool and the right techniques. As a result, the aforementioned tools are free to use, allowing users to quickly assess what is best for them.
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