Information can easily, and often anonymously, be leaked from internal corporate files to anonymous deep-web sites such as Pastebin, Github, and 4Chan.
Hackers and employees are finding sensitive corporate data such as product, account, or insider information and sharing it online; then promoting it through mainstream social media channels. Without access to Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) tools, banks and financial institutions are often caught in a vulnerable position – many times unknowingly.
Account and product information, credit card data, and other fraud scams are rampant on the deep-web, making it difficult to find or act on – especially if teams don’t know where to look. Some of the most advanced teams who have access to these sites, still need to know how hackers are communicating and the keywords used to find relevant content.
OSINT tools are made to scour the web specifically for these leaks.
To mitigate these risks, financial institutions need to find this information and act before any further fraudulent activity takes place. To make money off their information, Hackers use wide- spread social channels such as Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, and other blogs and forums to distribute and advertise data leaks – making manual monitoring for this information virtually impossible.
Open Source Intelligence platforms replace the time-consuming and costly manual process of searching social media and deep-web content. By using specific, user-defined filters and keywords, OSINT tools can help companies understand the context and nature of social posts relating to their organization.
Once the threat has been identified, teams can gather further information about the individual leaking corporate data. This gives security the information and the tools they require to monitor for future fraudulent activity and be alerted with potential threats.
Social media threat intelligence can protect and prevent these types of data leaks, saving organizations time and human capital, on top of mitigating serious fraudulent risk.