OSINT Methodology — External Red-Team Edition

0. When to Use / When NOT

Use this skill when: planning or executing authorized external recon (red team, bug bounty, ASM); mapping an org's attack surface; investigating a person/entity/threat-actor; producing client deliverables.

Do NOT use this skill when: the user needs active exploitation, post-exploitation, or malware dev; blue-team/detection content; or the target's authorization is unclear — surface the scope question first.

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1. Authorization & Legal Posture

Intended for assets the operator owns or has written authorization to assess.

Soft scope check — when authorization isn't established, ask once:

"Quick scope check: is this a target you own or have written authorization to assess? I want to make sure we stay on the right side of the engagement boundary."

Once asserted, don't re-ask. If the engagement type is stated ("pentest of acme.com under contract"), proceed.

Always-on guardrails:

• Never weaken auth, rate limits, or safety controls on the target side.
• No destructive probes (SYN scans at line-rate, masscan, fuzzing) outside explicit --aggressive mode.
• Never paste real PII, credentials, session tokens, or API keys into cloud-hosted LLMs.
• Never act against assets outside documented scope, even "obviously related" ones.

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2. Confidence Levels

Every assertion carries a confidence level.

| Level | Meaning | |---|---| | TENTATIVE | Plausible from indirect evidence; unverified. Snippet-only dork match, email pattern inferred from name, single passive-source subdomain. | | FIRM | Directly observed, uncorroborated. Subdomain resolves; Shodan banner returned; CT-log entry. | | CONFIRMED | Multiple independent corroborations OR directly verified. Live-validated token; bucket listable; three-source subdomain convergence. |

Rule of three for attribution: 3 independent weak signals, OR 1 strong + 1 weak. Never single-source attribute.

2.1 Confidence Upgrade Workflows

| Asset type | TENTATIVE → FIRM | FIRM → CONFIRMED | |---|---|---| | Subdomain | ≥2 passive sources OR DNS resolves | Serves on a standard port AND banner/cert returned | | IP | ≥2 sources (passive DNS, ASN, Shodan) | TCP SYN-ACK or ICMP reply | | WebApp | URL extracted but not yet hit | HTTP returns 2xx/3xx/4xx AND content-length > 0 | | Email | Name-pattern inferred OR snippet-only | Listed in Hunter/IntelX/breach, OR SMTP 250 (abort at DATA) | | Bucket | Permutation candidate + HEAD returns 200/301/403 (exists) | GET listing = CONFIRMED | | Credential / secret | Regex match in captured text | Read-only validator returns success (scope + account-ID documented) | | Person | Name from single source | Confirmed by second independent source | | SSO tenant | OIDC discovery endpoint returns metadata | Tenant GUID extracted AND domain ties back via MX/autodiscover/SP record |

Default reporting posture: never claim CONFIRMED without explicit corroboration. When in doubt, downgrade.

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3. Output Format

Each finding uses this schema (drops cleanly into asset-management tools):

Finding:
  id:          <stable hash or UUID>
  module:      <technique that discovered it>
  asset_key:   <typed key, e.g. sub:api.example.com>
  category:    <e.g. SECRET_LEAK, OPEN_GRAPHQL_API, SSO_EXPOSURE>
  severity:    <info|low|medium|high|critical>
  confidence:  <tentative|firm|confirmed>
  title:       <one-line summary>
  description: <2-5 sentences>
  evidence:
    url:       <where found>
    timestamp: <UTC ISO8601>
    sha256:    <hash of any downloaded artifact>
    raw:       <truncated to 2 KiB>
  references:  [<CVE-ID, advisory URL, vendor doc>]
  remediation: <action the asset owner can take>

Always use UTC timestamps.

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4. Source Hygiene & Citations

For every artifact: URL + UTC timestamp + SHA-256 + tool version + run_id.

• Hash all downloads with SHA-256. Screenshot in PNG.
• Raw HTTP captures capped at 2 KiB body. JSONL logs, one line per event.
• Separate evidence read-only from working copies; never edit captured artifacts.
• Prefer durable references (CVE, ATT&CK technique ID, RFC). If ephemeral, archive first (archive.today, Wayback SavePageNow).

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5. Do NOT

• Do NOT paste creds, session tokens, real PII, or unique pivots into cloud LLMs. Use local models for sensitive analysis.
• Do NOT assume vendor labels are ground truth (TRM, Chainalysis, Arkham can disagree).
• Do NOT assert ownership from a single signal (favicon hash, shared NS, shared CT issuer — each is a hypothesis).
• Do NOT run fuzzing, SYN scans, masscan, or nuclei fuzzing/* outside explicit --aggressive mode.
• Do NOT use a credential validator for anything except read-only verification.
• Do NOT mirror-image the threat actor. Separate capability from intent and sponsorship.
• Do NOT escalate when you hit active defenses — back off and document (§6.4).

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6. OpSec

6.1 Sock Puppets

Build posting history,