Over the course of my career, I have watched the world of open source intelligence (OSINT) grow. Techniques have developed immensely: investigators who previously spent hours trawling online forums can now search across surface, deep and dark web in a matter of seconds. With the market value of OSINT technology having passed $5 billion in 2022, it is clear that investigators and analysts are relying on this methodology more and more for a range of investigation types: from due diligence, to anti-financial crime, to serious and organised crime.
At Blackdot’s recent ‘Future of OSINT’ event, I had the opportunity to talk about the current state of the OSINT industry and how our upcoming flagship solution, Videris 5, will meet the challenges that we are likely to face.
The following article is a summary of my presentation. You can view the full recording of the talk, as well as an expert panel discussion led by our Head of Community, Charles Brown, here.
Integration of OSINT with other data sources – such as internal and curated data – is one of the biggest trends I’ve seen in recent years. Combining data types adds much-needed context to every investigation, helping investigators to get more value from their work. This is being recognised more and more in government and law enforcement, the financial services sector and beyond.
In fact, the UK government has recently developed a new initiative, INDEX, specifically to centralise Open Source Intelligence assessments across government.
With this expansion in use and growing recognition of its value, we are likely to see further developments across the OSINT industry:
OSINT investigators face a number of challenges when conducting investigations, mostly concerned with the sheer volume of data available. As OSINT becomes even more popular, technology needs to keep up with – and help overcome – these challenges.
Like much of the general public in everyday life, OSINT investigators are heavily reliant on manual internet searches. However, in the case of the investigator, searching is often not the most effective way of answering a question. Not only does a search sometimes take a long time to set up (considering which sources to interrogate, selecting search terms and employing boolean operators can be a fiddly process), the resultant search can return vast amounts of data that lack relevance to the entity being investigated.
Investigators are also challenged with having to make sure that the sources they are drawing from are reliable, in order to guarantee high-quality results and accurate decision-making.
Suggested reading: You can learn more about how reliable OSD is in this article.
As demand for OSINT increases, OSINT investigators are being pulled in every direction. They need solutions that allow them to work more efficiently and improve accuracy, all without sacrificing quality.
Furthermore, this increased demand puts additional pressure on investigations teams to learn and implement more processes. As OSINT technologies and processes develop, teams are continually required to take time out of their work weeks to adapt to these changes. Ultimately, this results in less time to do actual investigation.
As new investigative challenges emerge, so do new solutions. However, this isn’t always especially helpful: are investigators’ lives truly enhanced by using a separate solution for every step of the investigative process? Not only do organisations have to consider the cost of maintenance for multiple solutions, they also have to be certain that the data each provides is accurate and up-to-date. Ultimately, solutions intended to simplify the investigative process can often end up adding complexity.
Since 2016, Blackdot has worked with investigations teams to help them overcome common challenges through technology. We are pleased to announce the next step in this journey: the evolution of our OSINT tool, Videris.
Videris 5 offers new features and a new UI, built through customer and industry feedback, providing a simple and seamless user experience, and even better ROI to organisations seeking efficiency gains. Below are just a few of its features and benefits.
We have created a new search solution aimed at removing the friction from searching processes that should be simple, such as screening,
Videris Risk Search enables investigators to overcome the challenges we’ve just discussed:
By removing the most manual aspects of search, screening and investigations teams are better able to dedicate the appropriate amount of time to investigation and analysis – all based on real risks, not false positives.
The Videris 5 interface was developed alongside real investigators to ensure that it accurately reflects their workflows and meets their needs. Crucially, because it’s so easy to use, Videris 5 will help every investigator to work faster and more effectively.
Videris 5 is a single platform for every part of an investigator’s workflow. For the first time, it’s available through a web browser, further promoting ease of access. This means that an entire investigations team can access all the OSINT tools they need from one place without having to manually switch programmes. With everyone using the same software, consistency and diligence are promoted without any compromise on quality.
By using a single platform, organisations reduce the need to maintain multiple tools. Organisations wishing to integrate Videris with case management systems or similar can do so using an API, without the need to replace existing technology. In other words, they can seamlessly integrate Videris into their existing workflows.
No matter how unique or complex an entity may be, Videris is designed to make connections and information easily consumable.
Videris 5 elevates the entire investigative process by allowing investigators to create more complex cases directly from simple screening searches. This avoids duplication of effort when cases are passed between teams.
For due diligence and compliance processes to be valid, it is essential that data and procedures are clearly presented and explainable to regulators and governmental authorities. Videris 5 is designed to simplify and speed up this reporting, retaining sourcing at every stage of an investigation and making each step easy to explain and present.
OSINT is only going to grow in importance as it’s included in more types of investigations, across more sectors. This, combined with the ever larger volumes of data available online, is likely to create new trends:
Videris 5 is set to take on these challenges by centralising all crucial OSINT tools, so that every OSINT investigation can happen in less time. It is Blackdot’s mission to help break down the complexities of OSINT and bring OSD into focus so that risk can be identified and acted upon.
Get in contact today to see how Videris can elevate your investigations.
Stuart is an internationally respected cybersecurity expert who is responsible for the product and security strategy at Blackdot Solutions. Stuart also has consultancy experience across the areas of digital forensic, cybersecurity and eDiscovery, and has advised the United Nations’ peak cybersecurity body ITU providing cybersecurity training for over 60 national CERTs. You can follow him on LinkedIn here.