OSINT

Intelligence gathered from publicly available sources.

Open-Source Intelligence is information collected from publicly available sources such as websites, social media, public records, and DNS data. Attackers use it during reconnaissance to map an organization, identify employees, and craft convincing phishing or social engineering campaigns. Defenders and red teams use the same techniques to understand their exposed footprint and reduce information leakage. Unlike intrusive scanning, OSINT is passive and leaves little trace on the target, which makes it an early and stealthy phase of the attack life cycle.