What is OSINT and how does open source intelligence work?

In the information age, the Internet has become the world’s largest publicly accessible archive. Every day, your company, its employees and partners leave digital footprints in it – on social media, on websites, in public records or on discussion forums. The ability to collect, analyze and transform these seemingly unrelated bits of information into useful knowledge is the essence of OSINT (Open Source Intelligence).

It is a powerful tool with two facets. In the hands of business analysts, OSINT allows market research, competitive analysis and contractor verification. But in the hands of cybercriminals, it becomes a key element in preparing for precise and devastating attacks. The information your company and its employees unknowingly share can be used by hackers to create personalized phishing campaigns or map a company’s infrastructure. In this guide, we’ll explain what OSINT is, how it works, the risks it poses and how it can be used legally. We will also show you how to consciously manage your organization’s digital footprint to minimize risk and protect your most valuable assets.

What is OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) and how is it used by companies and hackers?

OSINT, or Open Source Intelligence, or white intelligence, is the discipline of extracting information from publicly available, legitimate sources and then analyzing and processing it to produce tangible, useful knowledge (so-called “intelligence”). The key distinction here is between “information” (raw, unprocessed fact) and “intelligence” (analyzed, verified and contextualized product). OSINT is not about hacking, breaking security or stealing data – its entire strength lies in its ability to find, combine and interpret information that is available to anyone.

In the business world, OSINT is a valuable and fully legitimate decision support tool. Marketing departments use it to analyze competitors, monitor brand opinions and identify market trends. HR departments use OSINT techniques to vet job candidates by checking their public work activity. Security and compliance teams use it to verify contractors and business partners (due diligence), seeking information about their reputation or potential relationships.

Unfortunately, the same techniques and tools are at the heart of cybercriminals‘ operations. For hackers, OSINT is the first and most important phase of any advanced attack, known as reconnaissance. Before they attempt an intrusion, they spend weeks or months gathering information about their target. They look for data about the technologies used by the company, the email addresses and positions of key employees, the organizational structure and even private information about decision makers. All of this data allows them to create a precise profile of the target and prepare a personalized, and therefore much more effective, attack.

What information about your company and employees can be found in publicly available sources?

The amount of information about a company and its employees that can be found in open sources is often shockingly large. A cybercriminal, given enough time, is able to build a very detailed picture of an organization without breaking a single security feature. This information comes from multiple, seemingly unrelated places.

On the company’s website itself, you can find the organizational structure, names of key managers, contact information, and in the “Careers” section, information about sought-after specialists that reveals what technologies the company uses (e.g., “we are looking for an administrator with experience in VMware and Fortinet”). Public registers, such as the National Court Register (KRS) or the Central Register and Information on Economic Activity (CEIDG), provide detailed data on the company’s management, shareholders and financial situation.

A huge source of information is social media, especially those of a professional nature, such as LinkedIn. Employee profiles often include a detailed employment history, a description of their duties, a list of technologies they work with, and even information about projects they have participated in. By combining this data, an attacker can map entire departments, identify individuals with access to key systems and learn about their professional interests. Even seemingly innocuous photos of a company event posted on Facebook can reveal the look of an office, badges on lanyards or the brand of laptops used.

Other sources include online forums and newsgroups, where IT employees, looking for a solution to a problem, may inadvertently reveal bits and pieces of a company’s systems configuration. Analysis of job postings, press releases, and even metadata in PDF files published on the company’s website (which may include user names and software versions) all add up to a digital footprint that can be used against the organization.

How do cybercriminals use OSINT to prepare advanced attacks (such as spear phishing)?

The information gathered during the reconnaissance phase using OSINT techniques is an invaluable asset for cybercriminals to move from massive, random attacks to precise, personalized and much more effective operations. The goal is to create an attack that looks so credible that the victim has no reason to question it.

The most common use of OSINT data is to prepare spear phishing attacks. Unlike regular phishing, which is sent in bulk, spear phishing targets a specific person or a small group of people in an organization. The attacker, knowing from information found on the web the name of the company’s chairman (CEO), chief financial officer (CFO) and an accounting employee, can create a fake e-mail message. The message, purportedly from the CFO, is sent to the accounting employee with an urgent request to process a transfer to a new account, citing a conversation with the CEO. The message is believable because it uses real names and positions, and often alludes to current events at the company, which the attacker learned about from the media.

Another example is the personalization of malware. An attacker, knowing from LinkedIn that a marketing employee is interested in web analytics, can send him an email with an attachment called “Latest-Analytics-Report-2025.pdf.exe,” which looks like an interesting document, but is actually a virus. Information about the technologies used in a company, found in job postings, allows attackers to prepare exploits for specific software versions, instead of shooting blindly.

The data collected in the OSINT process can also be used to attack the private accounts of key employees. If an attacker finds out what services a system administrator privately uses and what hobbies he or she has, he or she can try to take over his or her private account and then use it to reset the password to the company account, thus bypassing many corporate security measures.

How to legally use OSINT techniques to analyze competition and verify contractors?

When used ethically and legally, OSINT techniques are an extremely powerful business tool for making better, data-driven decisions. The use of publicly available information for analytical purposes is not only legal, but is becoming the standard in many areas of business.

One key application is competitive analysis. By monitoring the public activity of competitors – their websites, press releases, social media profiles and even the job postings they publish – a company can gain valuable insight into their strategy. You can find out what new products they plan to introduce, what markets they are entering, what technologies they are investing in and what competencies they are building in their teams. Analyzing customer reviews of competitors on social media and forums, in turn, allows you to identify their weaknesses and strengths, which you can use in positioning your own offerings.

Another extremely important application is the verification of contractors and business partners (due diligence). Before a company signs an important contract or enters into a strategic partnership, it should thoroughly vet its future partner. OSINT allows gathering information about its reputation, financial condition (based on public reports), possible negative reviews in the media, as well as verifying the people on the board of directors. This minimizes the business, financial and reputational risks associated with entering into a partnership with an unreliable entity.

OSINT techniques are also widely used in recruitment processes. HR departments, by verifying candidates’ public professional profiles (e.g., on LinkedIn), can confirm their experience and competence. However, it is important to ensure that this process respects privacy and is limited to information of a professional nature to avoid accusations of discrimination.

Legitimate uses of OSINT in business

• Competitive Analysis:
  • Monitor product and marketing strategy.
  • Identify market and technology trends.
  • Analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of rivals.
• Contractor Verification (Due Diligence):
  • Checking the reputation and credibility of business partners.
  • Minimize financial and legal risks.
  • Verification of key people in the partner’s organization.
• Recruitment Support:
  • Confirmation of candidates’ experience and competence.
  • Analysis of public labor activity.
• Market and Customer Opinion Survey:
  • Identification of customer needs and expectations.
  • Monitor sentiment around your own brand and products.

What are the most popular tools and techniques used in white intelligence?

The arsenal of tools and techniques used in OSINT is vast and constantly evolving. The effectiveness of white intelligence depends not so much on having one miraculous tool, but on the ability to creatively combine information from many different sources. However, they can be divided into several main categories.

The basis is advanced search techniques in popular search engines such as Google. The use of so-called “Google Dorks, “ or special search operators (e.g. site:, filetype:, inurl:), allows very precise filtering of results. In this way, you can find, for example, all PDF files published on a specific company’s site, search for information on a specific domain, or find pages containing a specific keyword in the title.

Another category is social media analysis tools. There are platforms that allow advanced searching of profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter (X) or Facebook, as well as analyzing connections between individuals. Equally important are tools for analyzing domains and IT infrastructure. Sites such as whois allow you to see who owns a domain, and DNS analysis tools (such as dnsdumpster.com) can reveal subdomains, mail server addresses and other elements of a company’s infrastructure.

There are also powerful integrated OSINT frameworks, such as Maltego or theHarvester. These are platforms that automate the process of gathering information from a wide variety of sources (search engines, social media, databases) and present the results in graphical form, showing links between the items found – people, email addresses, companies or servers. More advanced techniques also include analyzing metadata in files and even analyzing photos for geolocation data (EXIF).

What social media data (e.g., LinkedIn) can pose a threat to a company?

Social media, especially professional-oriented platforms such as LinkedIn, have become a veritable goldmine for cybercriminals. Employees, often in good faith and out of a desire to build their personal brand, share information that, from an attacker’s perspective, are invaluable pieces of the puzzle for preparing a precise attack.

The biggest danger comes from detailed job descriptions and responsibilities. An employee who boasts in his LinkedIn profile that he is “an SAP system administrator responsible for the finance module” or “a security specialist who manages Palo Alto’s firewalls” directly tells the attacker who has access to key systems and what technologies the company uses. This allows the attacker to create a list of targets – people to attack first in order to gain access to the most valuable resources.

Another risky element is the public display of networks. By analyzing who the CFO connects with or who is on the project team, an attacker can understand the organizational structure and relationships within the company. This, in turn, helps make social engineering attacks more credible. An email requesting an urgent transfer from a supposed supervisor is much more convincing if the attacker knows who is actually whose supervisor.

Even seemingly innocuous information, such as conference attendance, certifications earned or newsgroup memberships, can be exploited. Knowing that an employee has been to an AWS cloud security conference, an attacker can send him or her a personalized phishing message with a link to supposed “post-conference materials.” Similarly, information about interests and hobbies shared on more private profiles can be used to build a false relationship and manipulate.

What does monitoring an organization’s “digital footprint” on the Internet entail?

Monitoring the “digital footprint” (digital footprint) is an ongoing process of proactively finding, analyzing and evaluating information about a company, its employees and technologies that is publicly available on the Internet. The goal of this process is to look at one’s own organization from the perspective of a potential attacker and proactively identify those pieces of information that can be used against it. This is a key component of modern cyber risk management.

The monitoring process is based on the regular and systematic application of OSINT techniques against one’s own company. This includes periodically scouring the Internet using advanced search operators for mentions of the company, its products, as well as employee email addresses in the @companyname.com format. You should also monitor text-sharing sites (pastebins) and Darknet forums for possible leaks of credentials or other sensitive information.

A key element is to analyze social media profiles, especially on LinkedIn. You should regularly review what information employees share, paying attention to overly detailed job descriptions, disclosure of the names of technologies used, or discussions of company topics in public groups. It’s also important to monitor the company’s technical footprint, i.e. analyzing the information available in public DNS records, SSL certificates or in the metadata of files published on the website.

Many companies use specialized, automated platforms to monitor their digital footprint. These tools constantly scan the Internet, social media and the Darknet, automatically alerting the security team when potentially dangerous information is detected, such as the leak of company email addresses in a new database or the appearance of a mention of the company in a hacking forum. Such proactive monitoring allows for a quick response before the information is exploited by criminals.

What security policies help minimize the amount of sensitive data available to the public?

Minimizing the publicly accessible digital footprint requires the implementation of clear and enforceable security policies that define what information and how it can be shared by the company and its employees. These policies must be coupled with an education program so that employees understand their purpose and importance.

The basis is to create a policy on the use of social media. It should include clear guidelines for employees on what information about the company they can and should not publish on their professional and personal profiles. It should be recommended to avoid detailing the names of internal systems, software versions or describing in detail their responsibilities for accessing sensitive data. The policy should also regulate the publication of photos from the office or company events, paying attention to what is in the background (e.g., whiteboards, computer screens, badges).

Another important document is the information classification policy. The company should define what data is public, what is for internal use, and what is confidential or secret. Employees must be trained on how to handle each type of information and what channels of communication are allowed for data with a certain level of confidentiality. A “clean desk and screen” policy should also be implemented, which mandates locking computers when away from the desk and avoiding leaving sensitive documents in plain sight.

Finally, the marketing and PR department must also be subject to proper procedures. Every public communication, job offer or document published on the site (e.g., a PDF) should be checked before publication to ensure that it does not inadvertently contain too many sensitive technical or organizational details. Procedures should also be put in place to remove metadata from files that could betray information about authors or the software used.

How do you run a controlled OSINT test to see what you can see on the outside?

Running a controlled OSINT test on your own company is one of the best exercises a security team can do. It allows you to identify in a practical way what information is visible to a potential attacker and assess the real level of risk. Such a test should be conducted in a methodical and structured manner.

The first step is to define the scope and objectives of the test. It is necessary to determine what exactly will be investigated – whether the focus is on the company’s technological footprint, information about key employees, or both. The goal is to gather as much information as possible, using only publicly available, legitimate sources, just as a hacker would do in the reconnaissance phase.

Then proceed with systematic data collection, using various techniques and tools. You start by analyzing the company’s main website, its subdomains, and public records (KRS, whois). Next, one turns to social media, where one creates a list of key employees and analyzes their public profiles for information on technologies, team structure and responsibilities. In parallel, search engines are scoured for leaked email addresses, passwords and mentions of the company in forums and newsgroups.

After the data collection phase, comes the most important stage – analysis and correlation of information. The collected, seemingly unrelated fragments must be combined into a coherent picture. The goal is to create a “target profile” – mapping key people, technologies and potential vulnerabilities. From this information, hypothetical attack scenarios can be built, e.g. “We can send a phishing email to CFO X, impersonating IT director Y, citing a recent system change Z wrote about on LinkedIn.” The result of the test should be a detailed report that presents the information found, assesses its risk and recommends specific corrective actions (e.g., deletion of data, employee training).

How do you educate employees to consciously manage their online presence?

Educating employees on how to consciously manage their digital presence is a key part of minimizing OSINT risks. A company must make its team aware that what they publish online, even on private profiles, can have a direct impact on the security of the entire organization. An effective education program must be practical, ongoing and based on easy-to-understand examples.

The cornerstone is regular security awareness training, which should include a dedicated module on the dangers of social media and OSINT. Employees should be shown, using concrete, anonymized examples, how easily information from their LinkedIn and Facebook profiles can be combined to create a detailed picture of their professional and private lives. They need to be explained how an attacker can use information about their hobbies, where they live or the names of family members to build trust and launch a social engineering attack.

Training should include practical tips and best practices. Employees should be taught how to properly configure privacy settings on their social media profiles to limit the visibility of posts to friends only. They need to be encouraged to think critically before accepting an invitation to network from a stranger and to regularly review the information they share about themselves. It’s also important to sensitize them to what information should not be given in public discussions on forums or topic groups.

It is also crucial to create clear and simple company guidelines (policies) on what is allowed and not allowed to be published in a professional context. Instead of scaring and banning, policies should educate and give employees the tools to make informed decisions. Building a culture in which employees understand that their digital footprint matters and feel a shared responsibility for the company’s security is the most effective form of defense.

Are there ways to remove unwanted company information from the Internet?

The issue of removing unwanted or harmful company information from the Internet is complex and not always possible to fully implement. The Internet, due to its decentralized nature, tends to “remember” everything. However, there are certain legal and technical mechanisms that, in certain situations, can help reduce the visibility or remove unwanted content altogether.

If the information violates the law – for example, it is defamatory, slanderous, infringes copyright or violates company secrets – the company has legal grounds to demand its removal. The first step is usually to contact directly the author or administrator of the site where the content was published with a formal request for its removal. If that fails, you can turn to the hosting provider. The last resort is the judicial route, which can lead to an injunction to remove the content.

A special case is the so-called “right to be forgotten,” which stems from the RODO, but it mainly applies to individuals’ data. In the context of search engines, such as Google, a company can request that links to pages containing outdated, irrelevant or infringing information about itself be removed from search results. Note, however, that Google only removes the link from search results, not the content itself from the original page.

In practice, it is extremely difficult to completely erase information that once went online, as it could have been copied and spread to many other places. Therefore, the most important thing is prevention – conscious management of information shared by the company and its employees. In the case of negative but true information (e.g., bad customer reviews), a more effective strategy than trying to remove it is often active reputation management, i.e. publicly addressing the problem and taking corrective action, as well as promoting positive content that will “cover” the negative ones in search results over time.

How can nFlo’s social engineering tests and security audits help identify and minimize open source intelligence risks?

At nFlo, we understand that the most effective defense against OSINT-based attacks is to think proactively like an attacker and identify vulnerabilities before the real criminals do. Our social engineering testing and security auditing services are designed to show companies in a controlled and secure way what their real digital footprint is and how it can be used to launch a successful attack.

Our services often begin with a controlled OSINT test, accurately simulating the reconnaissance phase that a hacker would perform. We collect and analyze publicly available information about your company, key employees and infrastructure, creating a detailed report that shows what’s out there. This report is an invaluable resource that makes management and IT aware of what specific information poses the greatest risk.

Based on the collected data, we design and execute controlled social engineering tests, such as spear phishing campaigns. We create personalized, credible attack scenarios targeting selected groups of employees, using information found in open sources. The purpose of these tests is not to “catch” employees off guard, but to practically verify their resilience and the effectiveness of existing procedures. The results of the tests make it possible to identify precisely which departments or individuals require additional, targeted training.

Finally, as part of our comprehensive security audits, we help create and implement effective policies and procedures that minimize public exposure of sensitive data. We advise on how to construct social media policies, how to educate employees and how to monitor an organization’s digital footprint. By working with nFlo, your company gains not only knowledge of its weaknesses, but also specific, practical tools and strategies to turn them into strengths.