CI 201 - Social Media & Open Source Intelligence

This course covers the skills investigators need to conduct successful online investigations involving social media. Topics include internet basics such as IP addresses and domains, an overview of currently popular social media platforms, and best practices for building an online undercover profile. Instructors demonstrate both open-source and commercially available investigative tools for social engineering, information gathering, and artifacts related to social media, as well as automated utilities to capture information and crawl websites.

Course structure:

• Internet basics. Learn about IP address assignment, resolving domains and IP addresses, and networking.
• Popular sites. Explore Facebook, Twitter, KiK Messenger, Snapchat, Instagram, Tumblr, and more.
• Tools and techniques. Learn about open-source and commercial products, social engineering, how to capture information and artifacts, and how to crawl websites, as well as best practices for investigative user accounts.
• Hands-on experience. Use many different free, open-source advanced search techniques, sites, and tools to help socially engineer and gather information. Participate in live demonstrations. (Requires Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts.)