UMBRA Delivers Fast, Current and Accurate OSINT Queries

Read Time:2 Minute, 29 Second

OSINT data comes from a wide range of sources. The most popular sources include social media accounts, blogs, discussion groups, cell phone videos and even online publications and RSS feeds.

Public government databases also represent a rich source of OSINT data, including mortgage information, titles, real-property data, deeds, licenses and business records. Public government data can prove ownership of legal entities such as businesses and real estate. However, public data can be challenging to find, because each government agency stores and manages its data differently, which has traditionally required manual searches.

OSINT data can also come from professional and academic publications, as well as gray literature including technical reports, patents, working papers and newsletters. This data can help build a complete profile of an individual during the hiring process or before issuing loans, grants or funding.

With the opportunity to access large droves of actionable data, why have organizations shied away from OSINT investigations?

The time factor: The time it takes to manually access and sift through open-source data to find the needle in the haystack can be overwhelming. It can take several days or even weeks of manual searches to find the needed information.

Data overload: Many suspects or potential clients have so much information online – thousands of social media posts, pictures and videos, making it challenging to find actionable insights.

Old data: Investigators have to research open sources before, during and toward the end of each investigation to ensure they get real-time, relevant data, which requires time-intensive manual scrapes.

However, OSINT investigations need not be complicated or time-consuming. If the right solutions are employed by properly trained personnel, the benefits of obtaining actionable, usable, real-time data are huge.

Investigators and analysts need OSINT tools that allow them to find the information they need fast. Solutions that provide customizable options—and leverage open-source intelligence by automating the OSINT process of scraping data from social media, gray literature and even public dark web sources—will best address the needs of modern investigations.

OSINT algorithms can even do a better job of finding relevant open-source information than manual searches. Solutions must be modular and adaptive, with the ability to scan information sources even if those sources change their internal programming, to ensure investigators get the most recent, reliable open-source data without delay. The ability to analyze massive amounts of data quickly to identify fake accounts, traditionally a time-intensive process for investigators, can help refute suspects’ “it-wasn’t-me”-type claims with more ease.

Today’s criminal investigators and private sector analysts need to get actionable insights from mountains of online data and avoid technical difficulties in order to solve cases. It is crucial they seek out end-to-end OSINT solutions that can automatically collect, analyze and structure information in a user-friendly way. What once took days can now be accomplished in minutes when the right solutions are deployed.

From The Shadows Emerges Knowledge

 

Happy
Happy
0 %
Sad
Sad
0 %
Excited
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
Angry
0 %
Surprise
Surprise
0 %
Previous post UMBRA Delivers Advanced Predictive Analytics For National Defense
Next post The FBI Conducted Nearly 3.5 Million Reported Searches of US Persons in 2021