Ad Analytics & Marketing SEO Tools as a Resource for OSINT Investigations
15Ad Analytics & Marketing SEO Tools are useful resources for OSINT investigations.
Typically, people will often look at Ad Analytics and Marketing tools when visiting domains for marketing, OPSEC risks, and privacy concerns. However, Ad Analytics and marketing SEO tools may provide crucial data, and in some instances dorks, for OSINT investigations, including some social media and messaging app platforms.
In ad analytics, the ad tracking, fingerprint canvassing, and other collection activities that can be viewed are a resource of information for investigative collection. Just as metadata may be crucial to an OSINT investigation, so may Ad Analytics. Ad Analytics may be used for fraud investigations, Bot Detection, identifying authentication vulnerabilities between login and domain, foreign connections, domain relationships to other domains, domain profiling, and other uses. Two primary free resources will be showcased- Markup the Blacklight and FouAnalytics PageXRay.
SEO tools like AHREFs, SEM Rush, and others are also useful for OSINT investigations. They are an additional tool category for the OSINT tool kit. They may be of use for pulling user data off of platforms- from individuals to governments. Data that these types of tools may provide include- Backlinks, Subdomains, Broken or Prior Links, Content, Users, Key Terms, IP addresses, and other information.
Combining both concepts, Ad Analytics and SEO Marketing tools, can be used for supporting the profiling and investigations of social media platforms, users, fraud, disinformation and perception management campaigns, country activities, organizational activities, and other concepts. This presentation covers a brief overview of how these resources can be used with case examples, including how these tools may also provide dork-like options off of some TLDs and platforms. Case examples may include- Telegram, MeWe, Governments, and Propaganda Campaigns that utilize disinformation.
About the Speaker
Sarah Womer is a Senior Analyst with Plessas Experts Network and an OSINT practitioner with over 20 years of experience as an OSINT teacher, production manager, researcher, editor, and analyst.
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