Week in OSINT #2024-15
From videos to visualisations, companies to communities, and from tips to tools! Maybe all of it is in this week's episode, but I mainly love alliterations...
Time flies when you're having fun, or when you are busy studying, like I was... But this week I am back with another 'normal' episode of Week in #OSINT. This week I have some really nice topics that I wanted to share, including several tools that a some of you might want to play with, and a new exercise by Sofia Santos! But enough chit-chat, it's time to dive into this week's overview:
- SANS 2024 OSINT Summit
- Brad's Batch of Bookmarks
- Investigate Shell Companies
- Ethereum Visualiser
- Fact-checking Tool
- BlueSky Tools
- Sofia's #026
Media: SANS 2024 OSINT Summit
This year I wasn't able to watch any of the talks during the SANS OSINT Summit, but as always the organisation has uploaded most of the talks to YouTube. At the moment of writing, a total of 16 videos have been uploaded, with topics on retrieving data from TikTok, investigating Russian internet, and doing investigations on Telegram. But besides talks about tools and techniques, there are also talks about human aspect of OSINT, and the impact AI is having on our work. Thank you, Brad Snyder [ ], for sharing this on Bsky!
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist...
Links: Brad's Batch of Bookmarks
While I checked out Brad Snyder's [ ] profile after I wrote about the SANS playlist, I discovered his Linktree page. And it is a little gem with awesome links, I must say! He has loads of links to communities, recurring items per day or month, lists of papers and books, event maps and OSINT RSS feeds (besides this blog )! So when you finish reading this episode, scroll back to this section and check it out yourself!
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/snyde21
RSS feed: https://start.me/p/aLgwg8/osint
Event Maps: https://start.me/p/Nx08Xp/event-maps
Recurring news: https://start.me/p/DPknkY/reports
Article: Investigate Shell Companies
Earlier this month, over at GIJN [ ] Karrie Kehoe [ ] shared tips and tricks for researching shell companies. If you haven't done a lot of sleuthing in this particular area of research, then this article is an absolute gem! Karrie explains how sites like OpenCorporates, the ICIJ Offshore Leaks, OCCRP's Aleph Database and the OpenSanctions database can help you get more insight into corporate structures. Within the article, there are several links to other useful websites, articles with more explanations, and tips.
Link: https://gijn.org/stories/...
Tool: Ethereum Visualiser
KennBro [ ], the developer of iKy, is building a new and exciting tool. He has created a visual explorer for Ethereum, using information from the Etherscan block explorer. With a free API key, and this tool, you are able to get a visual insight into transactions and wallets. Haven't had the time to install it myself to test it, so you will have to do with the cool looking demo video KennBro made!
A demo of tracKenn by Kennbro.
Link: https://github.com/kennbroorg/trackenn
Tool: Fact-checking Tool
GingerT [ ] shared a new tool last weekend, made by GONZOsint []. To explain what it is, I will quote from the GitHub repository:
| FEAT, short for Factcheck Explorer Analysis Tool, is engineered to facilitate in-depth exploration, analysis, and visualization of fact-checking data.
After a simple search query, in my example I searched for trump indictment, several online sources are being queried, and statistics about claims, timelines, sources and even the distribution of sources is visually presented in a dashboard. An awesome tool, for journalists and people that are into investigating misinformation!
Link: https://github.com/GONZOsint/FEAT
Tip: BlueSky Tools
I found some nifty tools out there, that are all dealing with BlueSky. First is the tool 'ClearSky', that was shared by Tilman Wagner [ ]. With it, you can find out on what lists accounts are placed, who is blocking them, or who they blocked. The tool Wolfgang shows you insights into user accounts and their interaction and blocks, and DeckBlue provides a Tweetdeck-like interface. Do check out some more tools, over at the 'Awesome BlueSky' GitHub repo, by fishttp:// [].
ClearSky: https://clearsky.app
Wolfgang: https://wolfgang.raios.xyz
DeckBlue: https://deck.blue/
GitHub: https://github.com/fishttp/awesome-bluesky
Training: Sofia's #026
To close this episode off, I of course need to share Sofia Santos' [ ] latest OSINT exercise. This time it contains a zip file, with multiple media files, that you will need to investigate. Sofia stated this exercise is not for beginners, so do be aware that this one might be slightly more challenging than others.
Link: https://gralhix.com/.../
FUNINT: This Week's Meme
Disclaimer: No part of the following image has been digitally altered in any way!
Have a good week and have a good search!
