Producing Actionable Intelligence With OSINT

Every waking minute, we are generating data. Every time we interact with another person, system, or network we generate enormous amounts of data that can be used in various business aspects. Truth is that data will soon if it hasn’t already, become the most crucial factor in any industry and it is time for every business owner to accept it. To remain successful you need to have the right data and know-how to use it. That can be the biggest problem in this time and age, as there is so much data available that it is hard to know which data can be used to improve your business operations. Using open-source intelligence tools can make all the difference between drowning in the ocean of unnecessary data or having the right data at the right moment.

Having the right data in the exact moment you need it without having to go through unbelievable amounts of unnecessary data can help you make smarter business decisions. Not only that you will be getting ahead of your competitors by either offering a new product, introducing a new marketing strategy, or even starting a sale at the right moment, but you can also improve your security protocols by identifying any vulnerabilities and preventing fraudulent activities. 83% of organizations consider data to be an integral part of their business strategy, and they are right. 

Why Should You Introduce OSINT Into Your Business?

Data is not going anywhere and you need to find a way to use its benefits to improve your business, sooner rather than later. You don’t want to end up at the end of the line, trying to catch up with your competitors that have already implemented Osint tools into their business elements. It can make a difference in almost any department, from learning more about the customers and improving their satisfaction, or creating targeted marketing strategies to using it for identifying patterns that might indicate fraud or criminal behavior and preventing it. You just need to be ready to embrace it. 

How to Utilize Actionable Intelligence?

While you might be able to collect additional data by yourself by using the search engines and social media platforms, you would gather a large amount of unusable data and you would have to waste your time going through all that data to find out what is usable and what is not. Open-source intelligence is programmed to find the sense in the ocean of data and provide you with actionable intelligence or in other words with intelligence that can be used to make decisions.

For example, knowing customers are looking for a new product related to reading will be useless information for you because it doesn’t give you any information you can use to create that product even if you are in that industry. But if you find out that customers are looking for a product that will allow them to remotely switch pages on their ebook reader, this will be an actionable intelligence as there is something you can do about it. 

When it comes to fraudulent behavior the same principles apply. Having information that there has been a phishing attack on some industry will not make any difference for you as you don’t have enough information to do anything about it. You don’t know which industry was affected, how the attack was conducted, or what were the warning signs. But, if you collect data that indicates several businesses in your industry have fallen victim to a cyber-attack due to a vulnerability in their network, that will be considered actionable intelligence as you can do something about it. You can check your network to see if the same security vulnerability is present in your network, and patch it up before it can be used against it.

By utilizing data collected with the help of open-source intelligence tools you will be able to gather more information about your businesses and your customers. This data can be used to discover any weaknesses or vulnerabilities within your business, recognize any possibilities for growth or identify fraudulent behavior patterns and by doing so protect your business from fraud attempts.

Open Source Intelligence allows your business to gain actionable intelligence, but it is up to you to act upon it and protect your business.