OSINT Advice for Beginners: What I Wish I Knew When I Started

Disclaimer: This text is not about specific OSINT tools; it’s about general advice. No tools are mentioned.

Recently, I saw a post on Medium about very handy OSINT tools. It was a very informative read containing a bunch of useful links and short descriptions, but it was written for osinters who just started their journey. And I thought: This is most definitely for advanced folks wanting to explore more links.

Image created by me using Create Studio 4.

I remember my first tries searching for some information online. I learned that OSINT was a thing and was very happy to see how good and helpful the community was. (By the way, this is true for certain open-source software communities as well, especially Linux.) But the amount of information was simply overwhelming. Everyone was recommending something I had never heard about at that time. Say I was looking for information about a person whose photo I found and got like 15 links from 15 different very willing people, but I just couldn’t decide where and how to start. So I tried everything and got lost very fast.

I had to learn the hard way that OSINT is not about using a zillion tools. It’s about knowing what to look for and using one or two tools to explore just one piece of information. But the two most important things are not the tools. It’s to record the results you find and try to verify them. Verification is especially hard to do and usually needs more information, especially when it comes to names of people. But don’t forget that you will have to use some other OSINT tools for verification as well.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say you are looking for a person. Just to make it easy, they are the CEO of a company that you or a friend of yours is interested in working for. So you know that the CEO’s name is legit and you know the company is real. But you want to collect some information about the CEO so you (or your friend) can prepare for the job interview. It’s always good to know a couple of things about your future boss, I guess, just to be sure.

When it comes to a person you are about to meet, the most valuable information is knowing what they look like. That way, you can immediately recognize them the moment they enter the room. So look for photos using the name of the CEO. Record your results. Then you can use other pieces of information you already have and know are true. In this case, you know they are the CEO of a certain company, which could also give you a likely location where they live, especially if the company is a smaller one. Now you can use the name, the occupation, and the location to see whether they match one of your recorded photos. Record everything and try to verify the new information piece by piece. You will find that the amount of data and the aspects to verify will grow very fast. You will have to record and verify those one by one.

As you can see, OSINT research is always going to be something big. But you can decide how fast the data grows, and you can eliminate a bunch of noise by verifying the new pieces of information you find. You know you are on the right path when new verified information also verifies older data you recorded.

A very common way to practice OSINT research is to start with yourself and your family members and/or friends. First, you will be amazed how much data you will find. But that’s not the point. The main thing is to be able to focus on using just a couple of tools. That’s because verification in this case is very easy, since you know yourself, your family, and your friends. (You might find unexpected facts nevertheless…)

So here is some short advice for beginners:

1. Start with yourself or a person whom you know very well.

2. Focus on one piece of information at a time and use just a couple of tools.

3. Record everything.

4. Try to verify the information.

5. Use the acquired data to look for more information you can record and verify.

6. Enjoy!