OSINT: Automatic Collection Of All Available Information With Intelligence X
- aircorridor
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
Welcome back, my aspiring OSINT Investigators!
In an era where information is one of the most valuable assets, open-source intelligence (OSINT) has become an essential tool for cybersecurity professionals, investigators, journalists, and researchers.
To reconstruct a complete picture of events, OSINT researchers must explore multiple sources. To simplify this process, the Intelligence X search engine was developed.
Intelligence X is designed to retrieve and preserve publicly accessible information, including data from the dark web, historical website snapshots, and leaked credentials. This tool has significantly expanded the capabilities of investigators, enabling them to access and analyze vast amounts of critical data that would otherwise be difficult to obtain. When combined with other OSINT tools like Maltego, Shodan, or OSINT Framework, Intelligence X becomes an invaluable asset in any investigator's toolkit.
In this tutorial, we'll explore this tool and examine the useful capabilities it provides. Let's get started.
The first step is to navigate to intelx.io and create an account.
Intelligence X offers multiple free tiers.
Step #2: Conducting a Search
The search process on Intelligence X is simple yet highly effective. Users can enter queries related to:
Email addresses
IP addresses
Domain names
Phone numbers
Documents
Cryptocurrency addresses
URLs
File hashes
For example, let's search for the Russian store lenta.ru.
We found a lot of information in text files, database files, PDFs, Excel sheets, and more. Click on the line displaying the number of results found to open the corresponding analytics.
From here, you can select the information sources or file formats you need. While a 'PRO' subscription is required to access most of the information, you might still find something interesting on the free tier.
Here we can see a text file published on a DarkNet site with email addresses and passwords.
In this window, you can view the site's history and tree structure from which the file was obtained, along with its metadata and selectors.
Scrolling further through the results, we can see some old WHOIS information.
Next, let's try searching using the IP address of Lukoil, a Russian energy corporation.
Not much, most of it's some kind of DNS information. But scrolling further, we can see messages from our cyber warriors.
Summary
While no single tool is perfect, Intelligence X is a powerful addition to any OSINT investigator’s toolkit. It offers access to a wide range of hidden and historical data. When paired with other OSINT tools, Intelligence X becomes even more effective at supporting research and cybersecurity investigations.