Cyber Intelligence and OSINT: Developing Mitigation Techniques Against Cybercrime Threats on Social Media

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) involve the collection or processes of gathering data and profiling of publicly available private and public sector information sources about individuals and business intelligence purposes. These sources includes internet and other social media platforms such as Facebook, emails, twitters, what’s apps for. Much debate and research has been done on the threats, vulnerabilities and the impact of the use of social media sites but this study is to minimize bias. Objective: To systematic review and synthesis findings on current empirical research topic on cyber intelligence and open source intelligence profiling to identifying both the threats and vulnerabilities on online social networks for mitigation purposes. Methods: A systematic narrative review of research using rigorous searching on online databases. The results were then subjected to review using a quantitative and quality appraisal tool and a narrative synthesis methodology. A theoretical framework was developed for the synthesis using concepts from the literature ‘The Effectiveness of Neighborhood Watch’. A Campbell Systematic Review Results: The systematic search retrieved 18 original research papers investigating and exploring the effects of online social media technologies on open source intelligence concepts. The use of social media were reported as enhancing social cohesion among peers, improving business opportunities as information gets to customers quickly. Safe identity experimentations, OSINT and cyber intelligence social media gathering is especially vital in the modern war on terror. Understanding terrorist network topologies, crime data analysis and mining, countering improvised explosive devices. The study also highlighted potential negative impacts and threats and the effect of social engineering threats in SNSs, threats of social networking and identity crime. Vulnerabilities of HTTP header information and cookies being sent to third-party aggregators as well harmful effects of exposure to threats. Conclusion: The systematic review has revealed extraordinary evidences and contradictory concepts. It has also revealed the underlining research challenges impacting on open source intelligence. Due to the invincibility nature of social media technologies, social media platforms are constantly being used for social, business and intelligence gathering purposes but to ensure proper and advance mitigating circumstance, further research is required to gain situational awareness and appropriate counter measure

Unveiling the Potential of Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) for Enhanced Cybersecurity Posture

Never before has it been more important to increase internal cybersecurity posture to prevent malicious activity, and organizations are forced to mobilize their resources to prepare for tomorrow's threats. Throughout the past few years, the usage of open-source intelligence (OSINT) has made its way from the military landscape into public, private, and commercial organizations. Using OSINT, organizations can tailor their countermeasures to the tactical, operational, and strategic procedures of potential cyber threat actors by benefiting from the knowledge within openly available sources. Leveraging the enormous information sharing on online platforms using OSINT also requires organizations to navigate the increasing information overload. Nevertheless, many are using ad hoc and unstructured approaches, contradicting the systematic fundamentals of the intelligence profession. Therefore, this study investigated how organizations can implement and use OSINT to improve cybersecurity posture using OSINT's advantages. A semi-systematic literature review (SSLR) highlighted a scant focus on organizational aspects of OSINT, whereas the focus has primarily relied on technical considerations. Interviews with nine representatives of different private, public, and commercial organizations helped understanding how each applied OSINT to extract as much value as possible from the CTI capability. During data collection and analysis, this thesis adopts the intelligence cycle, a well-known cyclic representation of the intelligence acquisition process. The thesis extends the theory by integrating several intelligence cycle theories and offers a more dynamic and comprehensive representation of the intelligence process. Through an inductive conceptual framework (ICF), the thesis highlights how OSINT can become a valuable tool to ensure organizations encounter the cyber threat landscape by considering relevant information about threat actors. The study emphasizes the significance of establishing an understandable definition of OSINT within one's organization and identifying intelligence requirements aligned with available resources. Determining the organization's motivation, prioritizing dialogue and feedback, and continuously evaluating the intelligence requirements are essential to leveraging OSINT's advantages. This new framework is one of the main contributions of this thesis, visualizing how the research findings all contribute to a coherent utilization of OSINT as a cybersecurity-enhancing tool. By guiding organizations through the entire intelligence cycle, they will likely experience a greater understanding of their own capabilities and potential cyber attackers

Privacy in crowdsourcing:a systematic review

The advent of crowdsourcing has brought with it multiple privacy challenges. For example, essential monitoring activities, while necessary and unavoidable, also potentially compromise contributor privacy. We conducted an extensive literature review of the research related to the privacy aspects of crowdsourcing. Our investigation revealed interesting gender differences and also differences in terms of individual perceptions. We conclude by suggesting a number of future research directions.</p