Also known as Digital Footprint Assessments, OSINT assessments are used to calculate the risks that individuals may face through their available information on social media and other publicly available information.
While almost everybody today has various social media accounts, there are cyber security risks that come along with this. This doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t have social media accounts, but just that they should be aware of the security implications of this. Therefore, organisations may use digital footprint assessments to determine the information available online about a person and how this information could be used to help facilitate social engineering attacks. These OSINT assessments are usually undertaken for high risk groups or individuals in a company who may be a likely target of criminals due to their high positions of power or access to sensitive information. Working out how the information accessible online about a person could be used for social engineering purposes not only determines a risk factor, but also raises awareness about cyber security online more generally.