Open-Source Intelligence Investigations: Development and Application of Efficient Tools

Abstract

Open-source intelligence is a branch within cybercrime investigation that focuses on information collection and aggregation. Through this aggregation, investigators and analysts can analyze the data for connections relevant to the investigation. There are many tools that assist with information collection and aggregation. However, these often require enterprise licensing. A solution to enterprise licensed tools is using open-source tools to collect information, often by scraping websites. These tools provide useful information, but they provide a large number of disjointed reports. The framework we developed automates information collection, aggregates these reports, and generates one single graphical report. By using a graphical report, the time required for analysis is also reduced. This framework can be used for different investigations. We performed a case study regarding the performance of the framework with missing person case information. It showed a significant improvement in the time required for information collection and report analysis.