SEC201: Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)

The course offers to the students a practical introduction to the field of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and how it is associated with the other intelligence gathering techniques. Students will be familiarized with the basic sources of publicly available information in the Internet and how this information can be collected. The alternative methods and tools that are available for information gathering from diverse sources, there will be presented and students will be asked to carry out practical exercises in order to develop their investigative skills that are required to search, locate and analyse open source information in the Internet. Specific techniques for using search engines, searching social networks, obtain publicly available personal data, download documents, files and other publicly available information such as maps, satellite images, places and coordinates will be exhaustively covered. Alternative sources of information such as deep web, data leaks, paste sites, etc. will also be presented. Finally, students will consolidate their knowledge of the open source intelligence collection by getting familiarized with the OSINT methodology, workflow, documentation and reporting techniques.