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Sock puppet accounts are mainly known to those outside the information security field as accounts used for disinformation purposes, such as swaying your opinion about a topic or a product. However, this is not the only way to use a sock puppet account. In Hg’s Summer FactSheet, up-and-coming cybersecurity researcher Dakota State University Junior, Mariel Klosterman, describes how sock puppets are used by malicious actors and OSINT investigators, types of sock puppet accounts, and how to create a sock puppet for information collection. -
Barbarians @ The Gate
This article’s title, Barbarians @ The Gate, refers to the threats that any security officer responsible for the safety of people, property, and reputation faces. Are you ignoring social media because it’s bad, it is too much information, or you feel you are smarter than that to use it? -
Best of People Search and Company Search Engines
Today’s commodity is data. Everyone is selling a specialized database in their particular arena. Our job as investigators is to find that database; doing so will greatly enhance our skills and give us the edge to set us apart from the rest. -
Using Sayari Graph for Investigations
This article examines the use of Sayari for intelligence analysts and corporate risk management professionals to collect, extract, and analyze data across borders and languages. Sayari can be used for due diligence to reduce risk or to enter a new market, to meet compliance or regulatory requirements, or to prevent fraud, financial crimes, and corruption. -
DNA: The New Open Source
This article examines how the growing trend of DNA testing can help the investigator, but also may be a damaging unwanted intrusion on personal privacy. We discuss how to protect yourself and how to remove any DNA you have left behind. -
TikTok: An OSINT Tool of Today's Youth
This article examines the quickly growing Chinese app and how from an open source intelligence perspective, this novelty app provides researchers and investigators with a plethora of knowledge and useful information. -
Predictive Intelligence How-To's
This article examines the step-by-step key methods for how to properly use social media platforms to monitor location-specific events. -
What the APP?! Top Social Media APPS and the Lowdown on What Info They Collect
Starting a new health and fitness routine? Need to get to the library, but your car is in the shop? Has your 12-year-old son been grounded from receiving photos from his friends on his smartphone but appears unaffected by it? Booking a trip to Bermuda? Or, are you stepping out of your single’s lifestyle and looking for love?
All of these questions have one thing in common that a mere 10 years ago did not exist: There’s an app for that!
This Hg FactSheet gives you a foundational understanding of what these APPS collect, better preparing you to protect yourself. -
OSINT for the Coming Year
This article examines the tools we're looking at for 2021 to further improve our investigative skills and to keep our OSINT community current on the latest resources. -
Social Media Investigations: Documenting and Reporting
If you or your team is conducting social media investigations, you’ve likely spent an exhaustive amount of time learning how to search for, collect, and analyze information from social media profiles. In this article learn how to carefully and accurately document those findings for comprehensive report writing. -
Your Online Digital Footprint -- How it Makes You Vulnerable
In this issue, Hg's Aine McCormack discusses our online digital footprint, and how to keep our cyber hygiene pristine. Exploring different social engineering tactics and social media best practices are amongst other things you'll find in the latest edition of Hetherington Group's Data2Know Newsletter!
