I recently completed the SANS SEC487 course in Open-Source Intelligence Gathering and Analysis. I also signed up to do the related GIAC Open Source Intelligence Certification exam. I really don’t want to be in the position of failing that exam, so I’m thoroughly preparing for it.
While conducting my preparations I have been slowly collecting the various resources that were used during the course into a list of bookmarks that I can share with the world. These bookmarks are available from the OSINT Bookmark Collection from DiscoveringData.org github repository as a html file that can be imported into your browser (right click -> save file, for best results). For anyone who has never imported bookmarks before or even for those who do it very irregularly a set of instructions can be found below.
Bookmarks Contents
The bookmarks contained in the file above were added by me from the contents of the course, however, I have also incorporated another great set of bookmarks from OSINT combine that I was aware of from a previous course. The set of bookmarks I have made available above is a superset of the resources that were covered during the Sec487 course enriched with the OSINT Combine bookmarks, bearing in mind there was quite a considerable overlap.
There are also some articles linked to to explain how some of the more esoteric tools or techniques can be used.
Of course, with an astronomical amount of resources for OSINT work available, this is far from an exhaustive list of bookmarks. If you have any resources that you think should not be missing from anybody’s OSINT bookmark collection feel free to comment below and I will add them. The Github repository will be updated from time to time to include any updates as my collection grows.
Bookmarks Structure
The bookmarks have been structured into what I hope is an easy to navigate menu system. Some of the resources have been included in more than one location, for example The Wayback Machine over at archive.org has been included in the Archive Tools folder and the Indirect Collection Tools folder since it allows for the collection of archived materials, and it can be collected indirectly without visiting the actual site (a tactic sometimes desired in order to ensure opsec). Bear in mind that although some of the tools and resources have been placed in one particular folder, they can still be useful in a different area, for example the Instant Data Scraper is in the Browser Extensions folder but it can be used during Social Media collection quite easily. Feel free to experiment and if any dots were joined for you by using this collection of bookmarks please share your experience below.
Importing Bookmarks Instructions
These instructions are based on the Chrome browser. The bookmarks are importable into all chromium based browsers and firefox. It is unknown whether other browsers are supported, but since the bookmark importing and exporting system is based on a Netscape standard, it’s likely most are.
Step 1: Download the bookmarks.html file to wherever you download such things, I went with the Desktop for convenience.
Step 2: Click on the menu button at the top right of your chrome browser Window and choose “Bookmarks -> Bookmark Manager”.
Step 3: From the bookmarks main menu at the top right of the Bookmark manager page, click “Import Bookmarks”.
Step 4: Choose the file bookmarks.html file from the Desktop (or wherever you saved it to).
When first imported into chromium based browsers they should automatically appear on your bookmarks bar, assuming you don’t already have a folder on in your bookmarks bar by they name of “DDO OSINT”. The same is not true of Firefox and you will have to use the bookmark manager to move them to the bookmark bar. If in the future, you want to import a newer version of the bookmarks or you do already have a bookmarks bar folder name “DDO OSINT” you would be better off deleting the existing “DDO OSINT” folder before importing the new set. (DDO stands for discoveringdata.org and was only used to try and ensure a unique folder name).
Call to Action
Again, if you have any resources that I’m missing that you think should not be let me know. Also, if you have any problems with this please let me know and I will do my best to assist. Comment below.