NeedleStack

The intersection of open-source information, disinformation, social media and journalism has spawned a new breed of investigator. Meet Brecht Castel, fact-checking journalist and OSINT aficionado. In this episode, Brecht shares his advice on how to be good at both. Learn how his background as a journalist helps him dig deeper, beyond “hashtag OSINT” and get the bigger story. And how his passion fo...

Mis- and disinformation abound on social media. But as violating users are deplatformed from mainstream sites, they’ve become hyper-concentrated on alternative social media where anything goes. We sit down with Dr. Welton Chang, CEO and co-founder of Pyrra Technologies, to discuss how AI/ML is helping researchers zero-in on disinformation, domestic extremism, hate speech and more, and understand h...

Fact-checking can be seen as the undoing of a story, tearing apart the salacious tidbits to get at the bloody — or perhaps just boring — truth. In this episode, veteran journalist and lead of AFP's award-winning digital verification team in Africa, Nina Lamparski, sits down in the NeedleStack guest seat to discuss fact-checking and debunking in the age of misinformation, how local media consumptio...

From a love of Tom Clancy novels to military intelligence to “the ivory tower” of industry analysts, Rick Holland’s road to Digital Shadow’s CISO taught him many lessons along the way. Rick shares his advice for building an intel team, including: avoid homogenous groups; take time to strategize — and follow — processes for OSINT collection on the surface, deep and dark (or derp) web; and remember...

OSINT is a powerful tool to identify vulnerabilities in your organization. But with all the information out there, how do you zero-in on the data you need quickly? In this episode, host and former CISO Matt Ashburn gives his advice on go-to resources, where to automate, how to truly gain an outside perspective and tradecraft considerations.

After spending 22 years in the U.S. Air Force building the branch’s cyber presence worldwide and reshaping its cyber curriculum, Lance Taylor now applies his background to the private sector. From lessons he’s learned along the way to the best tools for the job, Lance tells us how companies can improve their intel.

Without the right appreciation for intelligence, organizations may be hiring themselves into a problem. Vice President of Intelligence at ZeroFox A.J. Nash sits down with NeedleStack to discuss the fundamentals of intelligence, how to build and lead the best teams, and why as analysts doing the easy thing may be doing the best thing.

In episode 20 we interview Rob Fuller, the red team and CTI director for a major U.S. airline. Rob discusses how red teams can better leverage CTI, the grand mistakes of even the most security-conscious individuals, and why he thinks most security awareness training gets it wrong.

In this listeners live episode, Matt answers questions from the audience that have come up over our dark web episodes. Get sage advice on safely accessing the dark web without running afoul of policy, blockchain analysis (or the lack thereof with Monero), how to use PGP encryption to communicate with dark web actors and more.

The surprising identity behind some of the internet’s most nefarious hacks and why sometimes criminals are more willing to talk than victims of a crime, we discuss the dark side of the web with Darknet Diaries host Jack Rhysider.

Eileen Ormsby has chatted with drug lords, been threatened by purported hitmen and written books about The Silk Road. Her investigative journalism led her to the dark web, where she has been reporting her findings ever since.

Michael James of the OSINT Curious Project joins the podcast to give expert tips on conducting dark web research. From GitHub tools to Discord resources— Michael has practical guidance on finding information in the dark.

In this episode, podcast contributor Adam Huenke discusses how to investigate financial crimes on the dark web. How do stolen credit card numbers affect the victim of theft, the institution and those who investigate fraud? Tune in to hear all about it.

There’s a (false) assumption that cryptocurrency is inherently anonymous, concealing the identity of those who use it. But in fact, crypto has been used in countless investigations to unmask criminals and bring them to justice. We sit down with Matt Price, former IRS-CI special agent and current head of investigations and intelligence at Binance, to bust the myths of crypto and the dark web, and l...

In this episode, host Matt Ashburn, and co-host Jeff Phillips, break down everything you needed to know about the dark web. From how it works and why it was invented to things to consider before conducting your research there – we cover all the questions you were too afraid to ask.

Needlestack hosts answered live questions from our listeners in this special episode. From use cases in different industries to world news to tools to help researchers – Matt and Jeff discussed the role of OSINT in professional research.

This week the team is joined by threat intelligence researcher Adam Huenke to go over the importance of open-source intelligence to CTI research. From social media to the dark web, freely available information can be found to help improve security.

It takes a team of people to provide protection to executives and one of their most important tools for offering the best protection is OSINT. Whether searching Facebook for public protests or getting a tip from Twitter, guest Mick Baccio explains how open-source is a key tool in the field.

Trust and safety is a constantly growing and evolving field. In this episode, we cover the basics of the industry and the role of OSINT in minimizing risk to end users. We also discuss the risks to researchers when their investigations take them off-platform and into the wild of the web.

The latest episode in our OSINT use case tour covers how open-source can be applied to law enforcement. The popular use of social media has made it so that more and more of the clues investigators are looking for can be freely found.

Open-source intelligence (OSINT) has been playing out on the world stage in a big way over the past few weeks. Social media platforms like TikTok have become insightful sources for analysts to track Russian military movements in the Ukraine invasion. Tracking disinformation on various sites shows a war being fought with more than tanks — Russia is using culture and the power of the media. And auxi...

In our first listeners live episode, Matt and Jeff take questions from our live audience. They cover resources that can be useful in finding the best OSINT tools; advantages to using native-language search engines in international research; free training for OSINT analysts; and managing attribution to access the information you need. Listen on-demand, or sign up for our upcoming live events at aut...

Disguising your digital fingerprint is imperative to the results of online research. This episode, the hosts dive into the tools that can help investigators understand and manage their identity online. From websites to browsers, extensions and full-service managed attribution platforms, here are the tools you need to blend in online.

You’re conducting your research. It seems like it’s going successfully. But unbeknownst to you, the subject of your research is onto you, knows you’re snooping and is working to spoil your investigation. This is thanks to your digital fingerprint being passed by your browser. In this panel discussion, we dive deeeep into all the ways details of your digital fingerprint can be discovered — even whe...

Blending in with the crowd is critical to performing successful online research. If adversaries or the targets of your research can recognize your digital fingerprint, you could get blocked, targeted, infected, identified or tracked. In this episode, we’ll explain what’s in a digital fingerprint, how traditional browsers share this information, what it can mean for research projects and what’s nee...