Basel Institute on Governance Open-source Intelligence (OSINT) course
Introduction
The Basel Institute on Governance is an independent, international non-profit organization dedicated to preventing and combating corruption and other financial crimes and to strengthening governance around the world. The organization was established in Basel, Switzerland in 2003 by Professor Mark Pieth. ~Wikipedia
Open-source Intelligence (OSINT) is a central element of most corruption and money laundry investigations. The information and evidence you can gather from publicly available sources can make the the difference between a successful investigation and a dead end. Through a simulated investigation, this course will help you learn the basics of how to prepare, conduct and report an OSINT undertaking. ~ Basel Institute on Governance OSINT course home page.
The course which was divided into nine sessions, was comprehensive and well-structured to help carry out a fantasy case investigation. Throughout the course, I worked as an analyst for the National Criminal Investigation Division (CID) in a country named “Fair Islands”. The Coast Guard requested the support of my team in the shark fin seizure that took place in the morning on the 20/09/2021. Now I am going to walk you through the sessions and my experiences.
Session 0ne
Served as an introduction to the course, explaining how to navigate the course, the role and the goal of the course. It pulled through intelligence cycle, developed hypothesis and revised it for the purpose of the investigation.
Session two
Preparing the environment for investigation is crucial , as maintaining anonymity throughout the investigation will help prevent inviting the suspect’s attention. Security of the operating system was discussed, setting up a virtual machine, browser and connections with precise privacy settings was also discussed.
Session three
Database and web search on business registry, Mossaman, FV Malaga was done.
Session four
A relevant DNS record was investigated.
Session five
Archived and cache pages was looked at using some tools like Wayback machine, Archive.today, etc. archive twitter, google cache, Binge cache was also looked at.
Session six
For the purpose of the investigation, some Social media like LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter was explored to gather info on some individuals related to the case.
Session seven
Image information was exploited from some images gather during the cause of the investigation using Yandex, Metadata, etc. information like the device the picture was taken with, location and time of the snap was useful.
Session eight
Online communities, dark web and virtual currencies were discussed too. Reddit search, Exploring dark web using Tor browser and bitcoin investigation was explicitly done.
Session nine
Reporting is as well crucial as the investigation proper. Questions like, who?, where?, when?, How? And why the crime?, properly reported. Level of confidence seemed to be communicated properly to help the reader place a better judgement on the case. Graphs, images, screenshots, etc gathered through the cause of the investigation should be added to the report prior submission.
Conclusion
At the end of the each session, summary of the finds was recorded and aided a brief and comprehensive report. This course is recommendable to a beginner who wishes to venture into OSINT investigation and analyses. A great piece and an educative read.
