eSP - IT Solution Providers in Europe

Author: Vaidotas Šedys, Head of Risk Management at Oxylabs

Interconnected digital technology advances at a rapid pace, and so do the tactics and strategies employed by malicious individuals, criminal groups, and even nation-states. The World Economic Forum predicts global cybercrime will reach $10.5 trillion by 2025, forcing businesses and governments to look for next-generation solutions against emerging digital threats.

Unfortunately, deliberate criminal activity is only part of the challenge in this data-driven era. Costly leaks of sensitive data might happen due to simple human errors — in September, Microsoft’s data was leaked two times, not only disclosing the company’s plans for the next-gen Xbox but also exposing private employee data. As we already know, at least one of these events happened due to an accidentally misconfigured URL link.

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, so it is a perfect time to ask how businesses could improve their cyber resilience. Raising public awareness, educating employees, and implementing standard security measures (such as data encryption, multi-factor authentication, or routing traffic through VPNs) are good recommendations for increased organizational security. However, they are hardly enough today if one does not employ open-source intelligence.

What is open-source intelligence?

Open-source intelligence, or OSINT, defines the efforts of collecting, analyzing, and utilizing information from publicly available web sources, including forums, libraries, open databases, and even the dark web. Though OSINT can be used to gather commercially important business information and perform market analysis, at Oxylabs, we usually use it in the context of cyber threat intelligence.