šµļøāāļø Want to gather public info on someoneāno hacking involved?
In this video, we explore powerful OSINT techniques using tools like theHarvester, Maltego, Pimeyes, Kali Linux, and OSINT Framework. Learn how to find emails, phone numbers, social profiles, facial matches, and moreāall legally.
Featuring real demos with Google Dorking, phone and email OSINT, Instagram footprints, and facial recognition. Join An0n Ali and the world of ethical hacking.
00:00Open source intelligence isn't a modern technique. It has been around since the very beginning. In fact, during the Second World War, Lieutenant General Samuel B. Wilson, who headed the American Defense Intelligence Agency in the 70s made an astounding claim that he received 90% of intelligence data through open sources. But what exactly is open source intelligence and what does it mean in the modern age of technology? Well, in simple terms, open source intelligence or OSINT refers to the process of gathering publicly available information about a person, company or an organization from a variety of sources that are accessible for anyone to see.
00:29These sources can range from social media platforms and websites to public records and news articles. For example, let's say you want to find out more information about who this particular person hangs around with. But when you go to their Facebook's friend list, you notice that they've hidden or concealed this information. So what can you do in a scenario like this? Well, if you go ahead and open up their profile photo, cover photo, or any other post made by them that is set to public, you can look at the likes or comments to possibly get some clues, such as the full names of their friends and the people they frequently interact with. This small amount of intelligence that we just gathered is called open source intelligence. Now you might be wondering that, okay, so what if we got this?
00:59A quick disclaimer.
01:00While gathering publicly available information is legal, using it to compromise security or engaging in other activities with ill intent can still result in trouble real quick. This video is meant for educational purposes only and strongly discourages an ethical behavior. Anyway, coming back to the topic. Google dorking involves utilizing Google search engine with special search operators to find information that may not be easily found through regular searches. For example, let's say we're looking to purchase a wireless Wi-Fi adapter and we conduct a
01:28search on Google. In this scenario, Google will present us with wireless adapters available on different websites from across the globe. But what if we specifically want to see search results from a particular website like Amazon? Well, in that case, we can employ a special search operator called site colon followed by Amazon.com in the search query like this to exclusively see search results limited to Amazon. This practice is essentially what we refer to as Google hacking or Google dorking. Now similarly, if you possess the full name of your target, you can go ahead and search for every publicly available PDF, Excel, or Word document posted online containing that exact name using the file type search operator.
01:29In this scenario, Google will present us with wireless adapters available on different websites from across the globe. But what if we specifically want to see search results from a particular website like Amazon? Well, in that case, we can employ a special search operator called site colon followed by Amazon.com in the search query like this to exclusively see search results limited to Amazon. This practice is essentially what we refer to as Google hacking or Google dorking. Now similarly, if you possess the full name of your target, you can go ahead and search for every publicly available PDF, Excel, or Word document posted online containing that exact name using the file type search operator. To accomplish this,
01:59you would first enter the victim's name enclosed in inverted commas like this, and then write file type to specify the types of files you want to search for. The all research operator used here tells the search engine to also include Excel and Word documents in the search results. After hitting enter, the search results will display all the documents that may be associated with the provided name. This can be very effective as the documents found might include court records, resumes, or other official documents that can give insight into a person's life. The beautiful aspect of Google dorking is that if you wish to refine these search results even further by targeting a particular website such as the victim's university or workplace, you can achieve that by incorporating the
02:29website colon search operator we discussed earlier. Now if you would like to experiment with different search operators on your own, I will provide a link to a cheat sheet in the description down below that includes various search operators specifically tailored for open source intelligence. Additionally, you can also visit a website called the Google hacking database where several people have created and posted multiple search strings to find juicy information. Now if your victim has a photo of themselves as their profile picture, you can conduct a search for them based on their facial features using a fascinating tool called demise. This tool utilizes AI facial recognition to search for the same person across the internet
02:59about their online presence. And if the victim has uploaded a photograph of themselves standing outside next to a building or something without providing any specific information as to where they might be, you can head over to images.google.com, click on search by image, and upload that photograph to initiate a reverse image search. By analyzing the visual characteristics of the image and comparing it to similar images across the web, Google may provide valuable information about where the photograph was taken or other related details. Additionally, if you couldn't find anything using Google images, you can also explore other tools available for conducting reverse image searches by searching for them on the internet.
03:29This tool allows you to search for social media accounts associated with an email address and explore other activities carried out by the owner of that email, such as their contributions to Google Maps. Finding multiple social media accounts of our victim is a great way to learn more about their interests. For example, a programmer is likely to have an active profile on GitHub, while an artist may have profiles on platforms like PixArt or DeviantArt. Exploring different social media accounts can provide valuable insights into the hobbies, passions, and creative pursuits of an individual.
03:59When looking for social media accounts associated with a person, there's another fantastic website called socialsearcher.com. This website allows you to perform a comprehensive Google search using the victim's full name across multiple social media platforms simultaneously, and save a lot of valuable time slash effort. You can also head over to checkusernames.com, and search for a specific username on over more than 100 social media platforms. This tool can be very effective as many people prefer using a single username across the internet. Similar to F.E.O.S., a website called That's Them is another great tool for finding information on both email addresses and phone numbers.
04:29You can also provide a wealth of information when conducting an OSINT investigation, and if you're interested in learning more about phone OSINT techniques, you can check out my detailed video on the topic by clicking the i button above. Intel Techniques by Michael Bazel is also a good resource which provides multiple tools to gather information about our targets from their social media accounts. This website gathers all the important links in one place, saving us time that we would otherwise spend manually going through our target's profiles. Anyway guys this is it for the video, now I could go ahead and discuss several more tools and sources that can be utilized for finding information about someone, but I want to encourage you to visit the OSINT framework yourself, and explore
04:59the multiple tools available there. If you have any questions regarding the video, make sure to ask them in the comment section below and I will see you in the next one.
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