Now let's talk about Osint.
What is Osint or Open source intelligence?
Osint is basically using publicly available sources to collect information about an individual or an
organization.
And these publicly available sources could be books, newspaper, magazines, TV, radio, or the internet.
Now, Osint is mostly used by journalists to uncover information or verify facts, etc., and it's also
used by Ethical Hacker to identify and mitigate cyber threats and gather information about potential
vulnerabilities.
And it's used by law enforcement or police to gather information on potential threats and criminal activities,
and is also used by businesses for competitive intelligence market trends and to monitor their brand
reputation.
Osint is not only used by these people, it's also used by recruiters, private investigators, and
more.
Now, there are multiple reasons why people use Osint.
For example, employers use Osint to find information about job applicants and police or law enforcement,
or a family member might try and use Osint to find a missing person or a missing family member.
It's also used to conduct criminal investigations, and it's also used by ethical hackers to gather
information on their pentesting target.
Now, Osint is a skill, and the only way to learn Osint is by practicing gathering information about
people.
And when you go through this course, I highly recommend that you gather information about yourself
first and then see what information you can find about yourself.
This is the first thing that I've done when I've learned Osint, and I was able to find many information
that are not supposed to be online.
So when you go through this course, I highly recommend that you apply everything that you have learned
just so that you can get experience.
And the more you use Osint, the better it is to sharpen your Osint skills.
In addition to that, when you are conducting an Osint investigation or you are trying to find someone's
information on the internet, then you might be able to find surprising information.
For example, you might be able to find their home address, passwords, Social security numbers, and
more.
And you might start questioning whether finding this information is legal or not.
Since these information are online and are publicly available to everyone, then gathering these information
is completely legal.
As long as you don't use passwords that you might find online to access their online accounts because
you are not authorized to gain access to their accounts.
Now, the type of information that you can find about a person or an organization is very different
from a person to a person, or from an organization to an organization, because this all depends on
their online activity.
The more active a person is, the more information you'll be able to find about a person.
So you might be able to find emails, phone numbers, home addresses, date of birth, passwords, person's
interests, and much more.