| I use a wide range of techniques, quite a few are covered in Michael Bazzel's book on OSINT and its a large amount of material. The book is well worth getting if you haven't had exposure to these things. I'm basically looking for red flags, so inconsistency in website information vs. business and government records. This includes Secretary of State information which may need fuzzy matching, but includes Agent of Service, Address, and Company Leadership, as well as renewal dates, business status, renewal status. Legitimate businesses are not inconsistent here. I look at the website for how they get customers, and I verify their contact information is functional (usually through a VOIP number). A business without a phone line is usually not a business. Having a listed phone in the reassigned numbers database is a pretty big red flag as well. I'll look for social media business accounts, county court records, coroner reports, etc. blackbookonline.info and judyrecords.com have been my goto for awhile. The latter search engine was broken for awhile though because they provided too much info and were sued. Aside from that sometimes I get hits on OpenPayrolls. Companies that hide salary/company name, and postings that were posted without disclosure by recruiters are pretty big red flags as well. I'm sure there's plenty else but that's what I've been doing. |
Was the Michael Bazzell book you're referring to "Open Source Intelligence Techniques: Resources for Searching and Analyzing Online Information" or the "OSINT Techniques: Resources for Uncovering Online Information" (both around $44 on Amazon)?