In the context of terrorism and extremism, OSINT plays a pivotal role in enhancing situational awareness for preventing terror incidents and gathering insights to investigate extremists. Through OSINT workflows and sources like consumer records, social media, public records, public cameras, news articles, message boards, and more, investigators can proactively identify potential risks, investigate threat actors, and safeguard assets and people.

This guide will explore how, using OSINT, investigators can find extremist content and propaganda, online radicalization and recruitment, early warning signs of potential incidents, and then investigate those sharing this content for threat indicators like mental health issues, threatening content, and more.