Why Ad-Hoc OSINT Doesn't Scale: From analyst workflows to institutional intelligence

Open-source intelligence (OSINT) was once a discipline primarily associated with criminal investigations and national intelligence work. Today, it has become a critical pillar in a wide range of corporate and operational processes from internal investigations and fraud detection to KYC, third-party validation, and due-diligence assessments.

However, despite this shift in importance, OSINT is still frequently performed in an ad-hoc manner: how data is collected, how evidence is preserved, and operational security mechanisms often depend on individual habits rather than standardised practice. In many cases, investigations are even conducted directly from managed corporate devices, putting both the integrity of the intelligence operation and the wider enterprise network at unnecessary risk. This lack of standardisation introduces operational, security, and compliance risks that many organisations do not fully recognise until something goes wrong.

Operational Risk

Glazer is a sandboxed OSINT investigation environment in which the sandboxed browser accesses the internet solely via built-in VPN or Tor to provide security and anonymity, and collected data is enriched using internal and third-party sources to speed up triage and decisions.

OSINT operations are often highly sensitive, particularly when the very existence of the investigation must remain undisclosed. Without standardized operational security measures, the risk of human error increases significantly. Even minor mistakes can expose the organization conducting the research or, in some cases, compromise the identity and safety of the individual investigator.

From an information management perspective, there is an ongoing risk that critical details are not preserved or become lost within fragmented workflows. OSINT processes also tend to rely on analysts capturing only the information they believe is relevant in the moment, leaving behind data that may later prove essential as the investigation evolves or provide insight in concurrent or prospective cases.

The Cost of Non-Standardised Investigations

At a glance, it may not seem problematic for each intelligence analyst to use their own OSINT device, collect information independently, and manually transfer results into managed systems.

In practice, this means analysts working on the same case often visit the same sites, repeat the same searches, and report the same findings, sometimes without knowing others are doing the same. This leads to duplicated effort, analyst-dependent outcomes, and a complete lack of knowledge retention.

In the best scenario, only the information deemed relevant at the moment makes it into internal intelligence databases, while insights considered insignificant are lost even though they may later prove critical. This challenge extends not only to the information collected directly from the web but also to the valuable context generated through enrichment during the research process.

What is "Standardised OSINT"

In simple terms, standardised OSINT means that every analyst can focus on the part of the process where they create the most value: producing insight rather than managing tools or infrastructure. Standardisation ensures that the investigative workflow is clearly defined from collection to reporting, operational security is enforced through policy rather than individual interpretation, evidence is captured automatically as part of the process, and relevant enrichment takes place while the analyst is collecting the information.

It also means that all collected material, both relevant and seemingly irrelevant, is stored in a way that makes it searchable and reusable, allowing knowledge to accumulate rather than disappear when a case concludes or when people change roles. Standardised OSINT turns individual effort into institutional capability and enables teams to operate with consistency, efficiency, and confidence.

During browsing, IP and passive DNS information for the visited site is readily available, supporting efficient investigation of forums and phishing infrastructure.

The Glazer Wayback module allows analysts to revisit past investigations and view or download data collected from the clearnet or Tor network, including the enrichments applied at the time.

All these risks are why Glazer Technologies has built an enterprise-grade OSINT collection and management platform. It provides a fully sandboxed investigation environment securely connected to the internet, automatically captures and organizes collected intelligence, and offers cryptographic timestamping to ensure court-ready integrity and chain of custody. In addition, integrated data enrichment accelerates analyst workflows and provides the context necessary to make faster, better-informed decisions.

As a more concrete example, the Unabomber case demonstrates how standardised OSINT can speed up complex, long-running cases. Open source material was a critical part of the intelligence picture, for instance, public letters, published writings, mailing patterns, and tips from universities and corporations. With a platform like Glazer, this material would be collected and preserved in a single secure environment as it emerged. Information gathered by federal agencies, local law enforcement, and private organisations could be shared and correlated immediately instead of being processed in isolation by turning parallel efforts into cumulative intelligence.

About the author: Oskar Gross, PhD, is the CEO and Co-Founder of Glazer Technologies. Before founding Glazer, Oskar served nearly eight years as the head of the Cybercrime Bureau and later as the Head of the National Criminal Police in Estonia. With expertise in digital crime, security strategy, and law enforcement operations, he is now part of Glazer, which develops cutting-edge technological solutions that help organizations modernize and secure their intelligence collection.