OSINT, or Open-Source Intelligence, uses publicly available information for intelligence gathering and analysis. In the future, OSINT will continue to grow in importance as more information is made available through the internet and other open sources.
One trend likely to emerge is the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in OSINT. These technologies can help automate many time-consuming tasks associated with OSINT, such as data collection and analysis, allowing analysts to focus on more complex and strategic tasks.
However, it is also important to remember that OSINT is a human-driven process, and the human element will always be essential to its success. As such, the future of OSINT is likely to see a renewed emphasis on the role of human analysts in the intelligence process. This could involve the use of more advanced training and development programs to help analysts stay up to date with the latest techniques and technologies, as well as the use of more collaborative and interactive tools to help analysts share information and insights.
Overall, the future of OSINT is likely to be characterized by a combination of advanced technology and human expertise, with a renewed focus on the role of the human analyst in the intelligence process.

This text is generated by ChatGPT,

OSINT is not media monitoring, data mining, cognitive computing, or deep web crawling. These are all components of OSINT.

- So, what is OSINT and why use it in business? Simply put, OSINT is the process of providing actionable insights in a timely fashion based on publicly available information. OSINT for business is the art of providing guidance for busy executives suffering from information overload. Put more bluntly - find the information your client wants fast, then present it in a straightforward manner.

Providing Actionable Insights

The purpose of OSINT is to provide the client with a decision-making advantage – to provide insights that when acted upon will have an impact on the client’s position against industry peers, in terms of protection, advancement, risks, and opportunities. A good OSINT product is a structured assessment of fact-based findings that correspond to client requirements and can be used to make important business decisions. The quality of the product can consequently only be measured against its relevance for the client’s business performance, not the number of charts or the fancy cover page.

Unbiased Lay of the Land
It should be stressed that the purpose is not to provide clients with unprocessed information or large data sets, nor to impress them by presenting “exclusive” information. Clients are already overburdened by massive amounts of information and the last thing they want is more incomprehensible data. They pay other people so that they can focus on their core business activities. And they also want someone from the outside to look at their business operations, risks, counter party relations, etc. to get an unbiased lay of the land.  

Process and Product

OSINT is the process of finding, structuring, and analyzing information from publicly available sources (offline and online) and turning that information into accurate, digestible, and actionable assessments for decision-makers. OSINT is consequently both a process and a product, and the two cannot easily be separated from each other. Locating relevant information is one thing, presenting what you have found is another.

Brain-ware

OSINT professionals work step by step by identifying where they might find the data they need, structure their findings, and present well-researched assessments using a top-down approach. They use tools but are not relying on a single method or technology.

Kill Your Darlings and Less is More

The process starts by examining the client requirements. Second, we make sure we grasp the wider context, considering all relevant linguistic, cultural, political, and other dimensions. Then we start looking for relevant data and establish facts, validating as we go to avoid false positives, fake news, and other pitfalls.

Investigative findings are then presented for immediate consumption – i.e. to-the-point executive summaries with no need for additional processing. To reach this level of clarity, we must review each other’s work, kill our darlings, and consider different formats. Use graphs and maps but always put yourself in the client’s shoes and keep in mind that less is more. 

The assassination of Major-General Qassem Soleimani is the most severe escalation of the ongoing tensions between the United States (US) and Iran thus far.
Soleimani has been the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force since 1998, shaping Iranian international military operations and relations to countries in the region and proxy forces.  Soleimani was the most important personality within the IRGC  and within all the Iranian armed forces.
The assassination took place in Iraq and a prominent military leader for the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was killed as well. The killing highlights a vital aspect of the conflict between the US and Iran, as the countries fight for influence in Iraq. The PMF consists mostly of Iranian-backed militias. In 2018, the Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi decided to integrate these forces into the regular Iraqi armed forces. Meanwhile, the US supports the Iraqi government and armed forces with personnel, training and equipment.  Iraq is stuck in the middle between the US and Iran. Many attacks from both sides have taken place on Iraqi soil in the past year.

Ever since the US left the Iranian nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018,  the tensions between the US and Iran have escalated. Iran has taken numerous steps away from the nuclear deal, while the European signatories have been working to keep the deal intact. Iran has captured, and attacked merchant vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, shot down a US drone, and has been accused of numerous other attacks while Iranian proxies in different countries continuously act out against US forces and allies.

The US has mostly responded with sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy, while Israel has been accused of perpetrating several attacks on both Syrian and Iraqi soil against Iranian forces.

Previously, the most severe escalation happened on the 14th of September 2019 when several Saudi Arabian oil facilities were damaged in an attack by cruise missiles and drones. The Houthi forces of Yemen claimed the attack, but the attack didn't come from the direction of Yemen and both the US and Saudi Arabia quickly pointed their fingers at Iran as the perpetrator of the attack.

The United States has no problem attributing attacks to Iran, despite Iran's attempts to hide their involvement. Iran has been walking a thin line, acting as an aggressor in the region but avoiding armed conflict. All American forces and allies in the area are on high alert, making it practically impossible for Iran to act clandestinely. As the Iranian proxies in the region are well-known any action taken by the Houthi’s in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon or the PMF in Iraq will be attributed to Iran.

​The question remaining is what Iran can do in retaliation for one of their most important commanders being killed, while still avoiding a conflict that would mean the end of the regime?

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), when carried out properly, is a client-driven process of finding, analyzing and presenting actionable intelligence based on publicly available sources. The secret to leveraging the full potential of OSINT is that there is no secret. There is no single platform, method or theory that you can rely upon to become a master of your trade.  

OSINT as a tradecraft is therefore more than the individual databases, news aggregators or other tools you might use. The key to unleashing the full potential of dispersed information hidden in a variety of open sources is to apply a holistic and multi-pronged approach. Use your imagination, trust your instincts and experiment with different tools you come across. Go offline and remember that people are sources.  

OSINT is sometimes referred to as any activity involving gaining access to information in open sources, which covers pretty much what most people do every day (reading a newspaper or listening to your favorite podcast, for example). I argue that OSINT is much more than the rather mindless task of collecting data. OSINT, like other intelligence disciplines if they are properly implemented and integrated, could be dubbed “INTINT”– i. e. “Intellectual Intelligence” – where lateral thinking, creative skills and contextual awareness are more important than the ability to navigate complex do-it-all-platforms.  

Another key feature is the ability to transform data into information that clients can use in their decision-making process without having to waste time on interpretation. Which also means that you must know what your client wants and present your findings in a digestible format – the importance of being Client-driven cannot be overstated. To unleash the power of OSINT you will have to review how you work (your process) and what you deliver (your product).  

Apart from being client-driven, any practitioners aiming at honing their OSINT skills will need to master the three S’s – Sources, Structure and Summary. This might sound easy enough but hidden within are the challenging tasks of validating sources, maintaining an audit trail, facing your own biases, killing your darlings, etc. Anybody will appreciate the complexity of this in an age of fake news, increasing government interference and information overload, hence the intellectual and introspective nature of the OSINT tradecraft. Which also brings us to the real value of OSINT for corporate and other clients in this day and age – gaining a decision-making advantage by leveraging high-quality, fact-based information provided by a trusted partner.  

And finally, a cautionary piece of advice to all OSINT practitioners out there - exploit all available resources to the full, but keep in mind that the most powerful tool at your disposal is your brain.   here to edit.

Strong-State Protectionism 
The international system at large is undergoing a transformation, with rising trade barriers fueled by resurgent nationalism and authoritarianism. Seemingly ad hoc unilateral actions disrupt trade without reaping any discernable benefits for the initiating party other than projecting the image of a strong state. Multilateral frameworks are eroding, international agreements weakening and alliances shifting. A case in point is China’s increasingly assertive international posture, challenging American hegemony and extending its global reach by targeting credit-poor countries in Africa and elsewhere. 

Distrust and Imagined Stability
Non-state conflict and terrorist activity is on the rise, while trust for media and politicians is waning. Grass root movements and populist parties demand radical change in places we previously thought of as stable democracies. The Brexit debacle in the UK, the Gilets jaunes in France, the unrest in Hong Kong and Barcelona, coupled with a sense of rising crime levels in urban centers across Western Europe has shaken our preconceptions. 
Alongside these real or imagined threats to the powers that be in some parts of the world, other regions have seen a dramatic increase in defense procurement and militarization, often coupled with authoritarian and/or autocratic rule being further entrenched. The tension in the Persian Gulf is a case in point, threatening the world’s supply of vital energy resources, putting existing alliances to the test and creating new ones previously regarded as unthinkable. 

Overstretched Inter dependencies
Equally, a long period of globalization has created long supply chains involving several entities in multiple jurisdictions, with numerous subsidiaries, affiliates and partners all part of the indirect sphere of influence while also being potential sources of reputational risk and conflict of interest/ disloyalty issues. 
No wonder corporate decision makers have a hard time identifying who’s who in the “family”.  No wonder compliance departments feel their ability to assess counterparty risk is limited.  

WEAKENING RULE OF LAW
The resurgence of authoritarianism in the Middle East and elsewhere has brought increasingly hostile legislative and other measures to curb press freedom and other universal human rights. One example is the use of so-called cyber laws to track and punish dissent. The lack of transparency, the weakening of rule of law and increasing government interference also carries the risk of overestimation of a local market’s economic potential, apart from more “classic” risks of expropriation, unrest, forced abandonment and official corruption. If economic theory is anything to go by, the world’s negative slide toward weakening rule of law will discourage investments. 

EVOLVING CYBER THREATS 
While the risk of information security breaches perpetrated by hackers and organized crime groups is constantly highlighted in various threat assessments, state actors have increasingly deployed their cyber capabilities to conduct asymmetric warfare. State actors can inflict massive disruption while maintaining plausible deniability. Both the US and Iran have deployed these assets against each other, while China has exploited vulnerabilities to conduct industrial espionage for commercial gain. Sometime state actors and non-state actors collaborate, with criminal networks acting as subcontractors for government agencies. 
Both Chinese and Russian IT companies have been denied market access due to allegations of their software being used to further non-commercial geopolitical interests. Extended supply chains also pose cybersecurity risks as third-party suppliers have access to the company’s network and might be exploited as weak links. 

RESURGENT PUBLIC ACTIVISM 
The role of social media is disputed. The allegedly destructive role in fomenting opinion polarization has been contested by those who say it provides the only viable communication channels for endangered human rights activists and reporters. Either way, social media has undoubtedly been instrumental in the recent resurgence in public activism, addressing issues including but not limited to climate change, gender equality, job security and immigration. Thanks to the technological development, full-scale PR campaigns can now be deployed in no time while minor incidents can be amplified and cause massive reputational damage. 

EVER-INCREASING SCRUTINY
The increased public scrutiny of corporate behavior also holds true for government agencies and other watchdogs who have stepped up their efforts to make companies comply not only with regulatory requirements such as sanctions and anti-money laundering legislation, but also norms and standards including gender equality, environmental accountability and social responsibilities. A case in point is the increased focus on so-called “corporate tax transparency”, i.e. multinational corporations disclosing their numbers and refraining from previous tax minimizing schemes. 

IS CSR THE ANSWER?
Companies have responded to above challenges by creating ethical guidelines within a general framework of corporate social responsibility and have also taken steps to clean up their act under the banner of sustainability. However, commendable as they may be, corporate efforts to improve society do not address key challenges in terms of how companies deal with risks, especially if CSR efforts are primarily intended for public consumption. 

Today’s world is multipolar and volatile, with waning trust, resurgent authoritarianism and rising public activism as well as non-state conflict. Companies are beset by multiple sources of interdependent risk categories which defy existing modelling strategies and management practices. Simultaneously, companies must balance diverse compliance requirements against their own ambitious growth targets. External pressure also comes from a growing set of stakeholders including climate activists, international watchdogs, US law enforcement agencies (anti-bribery), the European Union (tax evasion), human rights organizations, etc.

With all this pressure piling up, companies need to reconsider their existing risk management systems and, in many cases, replace them with more holistic systems which will enable them to navigate more efficiently in this vast ocean of pitfalls and threats. They need systems which not only consider political and geographic risks but integrate them into the decision-making process. By applying a geostrategic perspective, companies will not only mitigate risks but also identify new opportunities and reveal hidden growth potential across countries and continents. 

However, many companies face numerous internal obstacles to efficiently manage risks such as siloed risk functions, biases in terms of age-old loyalties, vested interests, etc., reliance on incomplete third-party data, and finally the pressure to simultaneously meet both growth and compliance requirements. The traditional check-the-box mindset is a cultural obstacle, with static red-flag categorization in terms of political exposure, corruption and high-risk jurisdictions. This needs to be reevaluated and reinvented, as companies must increasingly enhance their understanding of the world and strive for more than just minimal regulatory adherence and short-term loss avoidance. 

Counter-party risk is a key risk that needs to be managed in today’s globalized environment. Now more than ever, companies need to familiarize themselves with their counter-parties and the countries and regions where they perform their business operations. Corporate decision-makers must consider human rights records, environmental policies, cyber security vulnerabilities and the potential reputational fallout of working too close with a regime seen as repressive, while also having to deal with traditional issues of concern such as economic swings, currency exchange fluctuations and infrastructure quality issues. 

All in all, there is a strong case to be made for geostrategic risk management as the world order is increasingly interconnected and multipolar. However, making risk management a strategic priority is not enough. The company’s capabilities must be embedded throughout the organization and age-old mindsets need to be replaced by contextual risk awareness to optimize performance across countries, functions and departments. In this regard, language skills, expat experience, familiarity with different political systems and other “brainware” capabilities will become increasingly important to harvest and interpret information in a global business environment. 
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New technologies should be embraced, but exclusively relying on automated data collection will not address existing risk management flaws and deficiencies. Rather than setting their hopes on artificial intelligence and machine learning to solve all risk-related issues in the future, companies must act now to achieve a higher level of risk resilience. In times of fake news and waning public trust, there is a greater need than ever for old-fashioned investigative techniques such as independently verifying facts in primary sources rather than relying on fragmented and incomplete data collection.