Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Fundamentals

Course Description

If you have spent anytime around cybersecurity, particularly Social Engineering, you have probably come across OSINT, which stands for Open Source Intelligence.

This OSINT course aims to provide a foundational understanding of OSINT:

This course does not have any prerequisites, but technical terminology knowledge such as “social engineering” is a great plus.

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

Open source intelligence is the most widely used subtype of threat intelligence. It’s a kind of intelligence that has some ethical implications, and because of that, there are laws that govern how it’s gathered.

OSINT is defined by the following characteristics:

The key phrase that students must remember is “publicly available.” That means that the intelligence that is collected must be done legally.

Here, open source means that the information that is gathered is available for public consumption.

In this OSINT training course, students will have the opportunity to learn the basics of open source intelligence. The topics that will be covered include defining what exactly OSINT is, who uses it, and what the ethical and moral aspects of the practice are.

The course objectives for the OSINT class are:

This course has a total clock time of 51 minutes. Students who complete the course will earn 1 CEU/CPE and receive a Certificate of Completion.

Typically, in cybersecurity, open source intelligence is used in two common cases, ethical hacking and penetration testing and to identify external threats.

Cybersecurity professionals use open source intelligence to determine where there are weaknesses or vulnerabilities in friendly networks so they can mitigate them before they are exploited by real threats. Some of the most commonly found weaknesses that are found using open source intelligence include the following:

Using OSINT, cybersecurity professionals are often able to gain insights into an organization’s most critical threats. This may include identifying new vulnerabilities that are actively being exploited to intercepting threat chatter about an impending cyberattack. Open source intelligence allows cybersecurity personnel to prioritize time and resources to deal with the most crucial threats promptly.

Open source intelligence can be very useful to organizations because of its inherently public nature and its ability to save resources. The latter being its most significant benefit overall.

Because the information gathered is publicly available, the expense required to gather it is far less than comparable classified information gathering. Additionally, OSINT is important for the following reasons:

Nearly every industry, organization, and individual can benefit from having OSINT knowledge. Whether it is for identifying threats or learning how to minimize their own exposure, it’s important knowledge to have.

If you are interested in learning about open source intelligence in cybersecurity, our OSINT training course will be an ideal course for you.

Enrolling in the course is simple, just click on the Register button in the top right corner of this screen to begin.

Study Resources

Performing investigations – There are many crimes (selling illegal products, scams, phishing, etc.) being committed all the time online and through social media. OSINT can help identify the evidence of criminal activity, geolocation, the account holder, and other relevant information.

Due Diligence – Organizations’ HR departments benefit from using OSINT to gather information about prospective and existing employees – especially using social media.

Enrolling in the course is simple, just click on the Register button in the top right corner of this screen to begin.

Module 1: Introduction

Module 2: Theory

Module 3: OSINT Playground

Module 4: Tools and Techniques

Module 5: Sock Puppets

Module 6: OSINT Defense

Module 7: Conclusion