The Agent Handler's OSINT Toolkit #1

Welcome to The Agent Handler's OSINT Toolkit - An OSINT Toolkit Inspired by HUMINT operations

This series will explore the unique blend of OSINT tools, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) honed in Human Intelligence (HUMINT) operations.

This approach will provide you with a distinct advantage, allowing you to:

• Think like an intelligence professional: Develop a deeper understanding of target psychology, motivation, and operational security.

• Refine your investigative skills: Learn advanced techniques for information gathering, analysis, and source evaluation.

• Gain a competitive edge: Utilise HUMINT inspired methods to uncover hidden connections, identify vulnerabilities, and anticipate threats.

Where possible I will include three levels; 📒Basic - Helpful for those starting out in OSINT/HUMINT, 🧪Intermediate - For those with existing experience and knowledge, and 🧠Advanced - aimed at those working in the field.

I have decided to kick things off with the basics but I will look to include more advanced tools and techniques as the community builds.

Issue 1: Open Source Intelligence for Target Research

Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Agent Handler's OSINT Toolkit! This issue will start at the beginning - researching a subject. Often the first step in an investigation starts with a name, so it is important to cast the net wide and obtain as much information as possible, we can do this using search operators which is the focus of this issue.

Lets say we are looking for a “Tony Montana” who is involved in a cryptocurrency scam under the business name “Montana Investments”….

📒Basic

• AND: Refines your search by requiring all keywords to appear in the results.

  "Tony Montana" AND cryptocurrency AND "Montana Investments"

• OR: Broadens your search by including results that contain either of the keywords.

  "Tony Montana" scam OR fraud OR "money laundering"

• NOT: Excludes results that contain a specific term. Perhaps we keep getting results for “Tony Montana” the musician but we don’t want to see that.

  "Tony Montana" -musician

🧪Intermediate

• filetype: Specify the desired file type (e.g., "filetype:pdf," "filetype:doc," "filetype:xls").

filetype:pdf "Tony Montana" OR "Montana Investments"

The above will provide pdf documents that contain “Tony Montana” or “Montana Investments”. Perhaps we will find a CV, resume or as he is linked to a cryptocurrency scam we might get a white paper.

• site: Specify the Top Level Domain (TLD) or website the results will be from (e.g. site:montanainvestments.com site:.com site:facebook.com).

 site:linkedin.com "Tony Montana" OR "Montana Investments"

The above will provide results from LinkedIn containing “Tony Montana” or “Montana Investments”. This could link to their account or posts that others have made that mention our subject.

🧠Advanced

Remember when we use a search engine we need to think of how the information might appear on a webpage. Names may not always appear first name surname. It may be the other way around, or just an initial.

• AROUND(n): Specify the distance between keywords where ‘n’ is the number of words in between your keywords, either before or after.

(Tony OR Antonio OR T) AROUND(1) Montana  

It might be that our subject goes by the name Tony but that isn’t their actual name. We might have to expand our search out thinking of alternatives.

• Translate: Not a command, but something worth considering. We may want to find out what results there in other langauges. To do this we might want to consider translating the name and then searching.

托尼·蒙塔纳

Perhaps “Tony Montana” had been focusing his cryptocurrency business in China and we need to establish what is being said about him.

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Disclaimer: This newsletter is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice.