Threat Inteliigence / OSINT / NETSEC / NATSEC

OSINT in perspective - US IC OSINT strategy 2024-2026

The US Intelligence Community (IC) is formalizing its approach to the use of open sources, as evidenced by the recently presented OSINT strategy for 2024-2026. The document outlines a clear vision for the future of the discipline, setting the stage for significant advances in how open source data is used for intelligence purposes. In this blog post, we will summarize key strategy concepts, […]

OSINT uphill - open sources of information and the spectrum of their availability

I recently had the opportunity to participate in the FIRST CTI Conference in Berlin, where I talked about how OSINT is not always as open as it might seem. Since the presentation included the methods and sources of specific analysts, I preferred to stay with TLP Green. In this post, however, I would like to present the main theses and problems that […]

Nuclear safeguards – PAL and protection of nuclear warheads

In the previous post, in which I described my trip to the NSA National Cryptology Museum, I mentioned that the topic of how nuclear warheads are secured is extremely interesting to me, so this time we will take a look at this area of security. It is difficult for me to imagine a situation or environment in which system imperfections (both causing false [...]

Squeezing out IoC juice - methodical analysis of network infrastructure.

One of the most common problems faced by CTI analysts is the use of collected data to discover further elements of hostile activity, i.e. the so-called "pivoting". Simply put, pivoting consists in discovering other artifacts such as IP addresses or malware samples through the common points of contact of both elements. In the case of malware, this can […]

RonanVM update

Shortly after setting up counterintelligence.pl, I also started the RonanVM project, i.e. a virtual machine image adapted to conduct OSINT investigations. Unfortunately, I don't have that much time to develop the project at the pace of Kali Linux, but I had the opportunity to make some changes and improvements recently. Moving on to the specifics: I also encourage you to use, in my opinion, the project […]

MSS - Ministry of State Security and its cyber activities

In the previous post, we dealt with the intelligence activity of the People's Liberation Army and how the reforms of the armed forces are aimed at improving their functioning in this field. This time we will focus on an agency dealing with typically intelligence tasks - the Ministry of State Security (国家 安全 部, MSS). To begin with a brief historical outline, the modern organization of the MSS is [...]

Jack Bauer on Facebook - terrorism and social media

When I started working in cybersecurity as a SOC analyst, I often looked at job offers in the industry in my spare time. Contrary to malicious comments, it was not caused by the will to change the employer as soon as possible, but rather by learning career paths and planning the direction of development. I remember that one of the ads that caught my attention a lot [...]

When the DoJ publishes your photo - about indictments and cyber operations

Observing the practice of the US administration in the field of political tools applied to entities responsible for cyber operations against the States, indictments are one of the most visible elements. In recent years, we have seen, for example, indictments against a GRU officer, Chinese intelligence, or more recently FSB officials. On the surface, it may seem that such actions do not [...]

Hunting for implants - OSINT malware analysis

I started to write a post about malware analysis in the context of OSINT and threat intelligence for a long time. It is one of the most widely used sources of information and a common goal of analyst research, but at the same time a technically complex issue. If we are talking about advanced static analysis (of the file itself) and dynamic (observing the behavior of the file after running), it is [...]

A look at cyber operations during the first days of the conflict in Ukraine

In the previous post, I tried to present what types of cyber operations accompany military actions and how different types of operations are supposed to achieve their goals by different means. Some may have expected much more intense cyber activities in Ukraine, attacks on industrial networks or the massive use of wipers. Although there are no signals indicating [...]

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