“Have you ever thought, In the wrong hands, OSINT could be a powerful weapon for orchestrating financial chaos and exploiting vulnerabilities in our digital world?”
You must be wondering how criminals can use OSINT for wrongdoings.
Let’s start our writing with surprising facts provided by intelligence agencies that use publicly available information for intelligence.
An interesting fact is that most agencies worldwide gather nearly 90% of information from publicly available data for intelligence purposes.
The higher rate of available public data also opens new opportunities for criminals to commit money laundering and other financial crimes.
This easily accessible information or data about an individual or company is known as OSINT framework.
Cybercrimes, identity theft, and fraud are successfully committed using open-source intelligence information.
So, today, we will highlight the risk OSNIT industries pose not only to financial institutions but also to the global ecosystem.
Understanding the OSINT digital footprint
If we explain the OSINT industry footprint in the simplest manner, we would say that publicly available data of an individual, organization, group of companies, or any entity that is accessible to different industries and even to a common man is known as the OSINT industry footprint.
The available data is used by different industries, such as spy agencies, intelligence, and government bodies, to improve the ecosystem.
However, criminal are also there to play their part and bring some twist to the OSINT. So they do.
Let’s find out how criminals use OSINT techniques for criminal activities.
How Criminals Exploit OSINT Framework?
1. Identifying Vulnerable Targets
As almost every individual’s information is easily accessible to everyone, criminals find people who may be more vulnerable to fraud or cyberattacks.
So, what do they do with such individuals? First, they collect publicly available data, such as personal details and financial data, like bank balances and the businesses they run, and also find organizational loopholes.
A prime example of such a target is phishing attacks. Criminals start by gathering data on targeted individuals using different social media platforms and company websites so that they can send them fraudulent messages that appear more legitimate.
2. Social Engineering Attacks
Social engineering, also known as human hacking, is committed by Criminals. It is a manipulation technique that sort of hypnotizes the victim, and they unintentionally share the information with the criminal that he shouldn’t.
Open source information enables criminals to craft convincing social engineering schemes by collecting detailed information about their targets. This information helps them impersonate trusted entities or individuals to deceive their victims.
For example, fraudsters can use LinkedIn or another platform where the company uploads its employees’ information to find information about a company’s employees. They can then send spear-phishing emails to the employees that appear to come from a senior executive and ask them to share sensitive data.
3. Creating Fake Identities
This could be the most dangerous misuse of OSINT, and the common man could even experience this.
How can a person create someone’s identity? It seemed difficult in the past, but now it is as easy as creating your own social media profile.
Criminal minds collect personal data from all social media platforms and create profiles that seem realistic with details such as name, occupation, education, and hobbies. Then, they access publicly available records like birth certificates and business registration numbers, which help them find names, addresses, and other sensitive details.
What do they do with such profiles and information?
By Gathering personal details from social media and public records, they create synthetic identities for opening bank accounts or applying for credit cards.
4. Planning and Executing Money Laundering
Data related to the states with weekend regulatory compliance programs is available over the Internet. And that is a plus point for criminals. They do not have to find a place where they can do money laundering; instead, they have been told by the regulatory body where to go.
So, using OSINT, they can identify jurisdictions with weaker regulatory frameworks and financial institutions with lax anti-money laundering controls.
The best way is to Research and select banks or financial services in countries known for poor AML enforcement to move illicit funds with reduced risk of detection.
What should organizations do?
They must implement a comprehensive compliance program to prevent individuals from exploiting their customers’ sensitive data. And the compliance program includes implementing comprehensive customer due diligence, monitoring and screening PEPs, sanctioned people, global watchlist, and so on.
Another major thing business need to do is to ensure that have have implementing the advance AML tool that automatically monitor, detect and report the suspicious transactions.
To achieve this, businesses need to incorporate AML software powered by AI and ML that monitors every moment and activity of every individual.
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