More About Nico Dekens - aka "Dutch Osint Guy"
Connect with Nico Dekens - aka "Dutch Osint Guy"
Nico Dekens is an experienced all-source intelligence analyst and the founder of Dutch Osint Guy Intelligence Services, specializing in Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), online Human Intelligence (HUMINT), and digital investigations. With a deep passion for intelligence gathering, analysis, and online investigations, Nico has dedicated over 20 years to the field, including extensive experience within Dutch law enforcement. Throughout his career, he has worked on a wide range of cases, from high-profile homicide and international narcotics investigations to tracking stolen art, gang violence, and online extremist networks. He has also conducted covert virtual HUMINT operations and counterterrorism investigations.
Recognized in the OSINT community as @Dutch_OsintGuy, Nico is a well-known trainer and consultant, providing expertise in OSINT methodologies, risk assessment, security awareness, and structured team workflows. As a co-founder of the OSINTCurio.us project, he actively contributes to the growth and development of OSINT professionals worldwide.
Driven by a mission to enhance global security, Nico pursued OSINT and cyber intelligence to help safeguard communities and stay ahead in an ever-evolving digital landscape. His commitment to continuous learning and knowledge-sharing has led him to train thousands of professionals in government and private sectors, including the development of OSINT units within the Dutch government.
Nico is a SANS instructor for SEC497: Practical Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) and is the lead author of SEC587: Advanced OSINT Gathering and Analysis. His teaching philosophy revolves around practical, real-world application, emphasizing a dynamic exchange of knowledge between instructor and student. He is also a faculty member at the SANS Technology Institute, a recognized NSA Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense.
Among his most impactful achievements, Nico takes pride in his role in preventing terrorist attacks and tracking down child predators. His contributions have earned recognition from organizations such as Europol, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), NATO, and Dutch law enforcement. Additionally, the Dutch Military Cyber Intelligence and Cyber Defense department has formally expressed gratitude for his efforts.
In 2023, Nico was named Open Source Intelligence Champion of the Year by the OSMOSIS Institute in recognition of his contributions to the field. His professional credentials include certifications as a Police Detective, Operational Intelligence Analyst, Tactical Intelligence Analyst, Strategic Intelligence Analyst, Open-Source Intelligence Analyst, Cyber Intelligence Tradecraft Professional, and Online Counterterrorism Specialist.
Podcasts and Talks
- Live Stream: Building on the Foundations of OSINT with SEC587: Advanced Open-Source Intelligence, November 2021
- SANS @ MIC Talk – Leveraging Telegram for OSINT purposes, August 2020
- Tech Tuesday Workshop – Introduction to OSINT Video & Image Verification, June 2020
- SANS @ MIC Talk – Using the OSINT Mind-State for Better Online Investigations, May 2020
- Operations Security (OPSEC) tradecraft tips for online Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Research, January 2020
- Recorded Future Podcast episode 142 – The Physical and the Digital of Open Source Intelligence
- Tech against terrorism podcast : The power and responsibility of Open Source Intelligence
- Layer8 podcast – Spot the Jihadi
- The Pivot: Make The World A Safer Place With OSINT
Publications
- Nico’s website: https://dutchosintguy.com/
More
- You can read his personal blog here: https://medium.com/@DutchOSINTguy
- Nico is the co-founder of The OSINT Curious: https://OSINTcurio.us/
- Research with Amsterdam University about Online Radicalisation: https://www.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/Radicalengagement
Connect with Nico
Latest Posts by Nico Dekens - aka "Dutch Osint Guy"
OSINT Year in Review: How Open-Source Intelligence Became Core to Enterprise Risk in 2025
Open-source intelligence (OSINT) hit a tipping point in 2025. From a support function that was once the domain of a few specialists, it is now at the center of risk work for governments, enterprises, and investigative teams. This shift happened as teams began to treat open-source data as operational intelligence rather than background research. The
Professional OSINT Is Not About Data. It’s About Decisions.
There is a moment in many investigations that feels uncomfortably familiar. The analyst has done the work. The sources have been checked. Profiles, domains, usernames, and connections are documented. There is a narrative. Sometimes even a clean visual showing how everything fits together. And then someone asks: “So… what do we do with this?” That
7 KYC Best Practices to Reduce Risks
Know Your Customer (KYC) is critical for protecting businesses from fraud and other financial crimes, including risks tied to cryptocurrency activity. Strong KYC programs look past the paperwork to uncover details and fill in gaps where fraud tends to hide. Identifying risk signals early enables compliance teams to make more informed decisions and take action
8 Biggest KYC Challenges (and How to Overcome Them)
KYC (Know Your Customer) might sound simple, but compliance teams are dealing with a number of significant challenges. If you’re on the front lines and see KYC firsthand every day, you know how messy the process can get. Teams try to move fast, but there’s always pressure to do more with less and still get
Corporate KYC: Verify and Onboard Businesses Effectively
Corporate KYC (Know Your Customer) is the core of every reliable onboarding program. It helps compliance teams determine who owns a business and how it operates before taking on any risk. Documents help, but they don’t tell the full story. Public records only go so far, and many companies look clean on paper even when
KYC vs. KYB: What’s the Difference?
KYC and KYB follow some similar processes, but they solve different problems. KYC focuses on people, while KYB focuses on companies. Both KYC and KYB are core parts of fraud prevention, and each plays a significant role in meeting Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) requirements. This guide breaks down how
8 Ways KYC Prevents Fraud
Fraud starts where the checks are the weakest, which is why bad actors often target the onboarding process. Strong KYC eliminates blind spots and gives analysts a clear view of a customer’s risk profile and strengthens KYC identity theft controls before an account ever goes live. In this guide, we’ll break down eight ways KYC
KYC Fintech: Crafting a Risk-Based Verification Strategy
KYC (Know Your Customer) in fintech needs to move fast, but it also needs to be smart. Most customers complete the KYC onboarding process from a phone or laptop, and they expect an answer right away. That speed puts pressure on compliance teams. Teams need to verify people and businesses with automated KYC verification without
KYC Risk Assessment: Why It Matters for Ongoing Monitoring
KYC risk assessment is the foundation of every comprehensive KYC (Know Your Customer) compliance program. It shapes how companies onboard new customers and how they’re monitored over time, starting with the KYC onboarding process. In this guide, we’ll explore what KYC risk assessments are and how they impact ongoing monitoring. We’ll also discuss the benefits
Perpetual KYC: Benefits, Risks, and Compliance Advantages
Traditional KYC (Know Your Customer) review cycles can’t keep up with customers’ constantly evolving risk profiles. By the time a compliance team runs a scheduled refresh, the customer’s profile may look completely different than it did at onboarding. Perpetual KYC closes these blind spots, watching for changes as they happen and updating the risk profile
KYC Checklist: 10 Essential Steps for Compliance Success
KYC (Know Your Customer) compliance is a vital process for banks, fintechs, insurers, and other regulated organizations. By verifying the identities of your customers and assessing their risk profiles, you can reduce fraud, money laundering, and other financial crimes. But building a KYC program that is consistent, effective, and audit-ready can be a challenge. A
AML and KYC: Compliance Guide for Banks and Financial Institutions
AML (Anti-Money Laundering) and KYC (Know Your Customer) risk management have long been at the core of banking. In fact, financial institutions risk liability and missing business opportunities if they do not have clear controls, accurate and clean data, and robustly defensible decisions. In this guide, we provide a comprehensive yet practical roadmap of what
What is Know Your Customer (KYC), and Why is It Important in Banking?
Know Your Customer (KYC) is the process by which banks and other regulated institutions verify their customers’ identities and information, in order to prevent fraud and comply with AML/CTF regulations. When implemented properly, KYC processes are an opportunity to understand intent and to use a verified identity profile, with the help of tools like ShadowDragon
KYC Integration: Step by Step Guide for Financial Institutions
Financial institutions face growing pressure to authenticate customer identities, detect financial crime, and comply with shifting KYC and AML regulations, all without slowing down onboarding or harming customer experience. But legacy KYC tools that focus on document verification and static watchlists can miss synthetic identities, shell companies, or disguised ownership structures. This guide provides a
The KYC Onboarding Process: Expert Guide
Know Your Customer (KYC) onboarding is the first line of defense between your organization and its customers, and it’s where most financial crimes are either detected and prevented or slip through the cracks. It’s much more than ID gathering. Done right, KYC onboarding confirms identity, assesses risk, appeases regulators, and protects your business with minimal
What is KYC Remediation? Step by Step Guide
Know Your Customer (KYC) remediation occurs after onboarding is complete. Remediation is the process of digging into existing client files to fix missing or expired information, update changes in ownership, and re-score risk against today’s increasingly stringent regulatory requirements. For regulators, there is no distinction between new and existing customers; full current files are expected,
KYC vs. CDD: What’s the Difference?
Financial institutions are required to “know their customer,” but the terms KYC and CDD are often confused or treated as separate processes. Customer Due Diligence (CDD) is a subset of KYC; it is not an alternative framework. KYC encompasses the entire lifecycle of identifying, verifying, assessing, and monitoring a customer over time. CDD is contained
Required KYC Documents for Banks
Banks are required to gather Know Your Customer (KYC) documents to comply with regulations, but they must also validate the documents are authentic, accurate, and associated with the actual real people or businesses involved. Banks need to establish and validate each customer’s identity, address, financial transactions, and, if the customer is a business, beneficial ownership
Automated KYC Verification: 8 Winning Strategies
Financial institutions and fintechs are facing increasing pressure to onboard customers quickly without missing hidden risks. Traditional manual Know Your Customer (KYC) solutions can’t keep pace with digital onboarding, global data sources, and sophisticated fraud techniques. For this reason, more banks and fintechs are deploying automated KYC checks to meet expectations around better risk and
How OSINT Is Transforming Stadium Security: Real-Time Insight for Game Day Threats
Major sporting events are high-profile, high-stakes operations. Thousands of fans, live broadcast coverage, and an open digital ecosystem make stadiums an attractive target for disruption. Traditional physical security is no longer enough, threats now emerge online, often days or weeks before the event begins. The Evolving Threat Landscape Modern security teams face a growing digital
KYC Verification Process: 8 Steps to Compliance
Know Your Customer (KYC) verification is a critical component of any financial compliance program. KYC verification is the process of verifying an individual’s or entity’s identity to confirm that they are who they claim to be, minimizing the risk of fraud, money laundering, and terrorist financing. The KYC process flow encompasses customer identification verification, risk-based
What is KYC in Crypto? Requirements, Process, and Verification Explained
Cryptocurrency has evolved from an experimental fad to a worldwide market. As it has grown in popularity, regulators around the world have made one thing clear: the platforms used to buy, sell, and store cryptocurrency have to know who their users are. Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations, once the domain of traditional banks, are now
OSINT Without Barriers: Spend Time on the Case, Not the Bureaucracy (with OSINT Tools)
Data grows by the second, more than 5 billion social data points are created a day. Yet too many investigations stall in the same places — getting access, crawling sources, juggling exports and manual pivots. That doesn’t produce better intelligence; it produces fatigue. If the goal is faster, defensible decisions, the barrier isn’t a lack
21 Best Threat Intelligence Platforms (2025 Guide)
Threat intelligence has become a critical function for security operations. With the rapid shift in attack tactics and a proliferation of threat signals on the surface, deep, and dark web, security teams need tools that help them filter out the noise, surface the real risks, and respond in an informed and targeted way. Threat Intelligence
21 Best Fraud Detection Software Tools (2025 Guide)
Fraud tactics are evolving faster than ever, and they’re becoming increasingly sophisticated. Driven by AI, automation, and novel attack vectors like synthetic identities and phishing-based account takeovers, organizations today face threats that can slip past outdated, rule-based defenses. To keep pace, fraud teams need advanced tools that combine real-time monitoring, machine learning, and contextual intelligence.
Top 5 Fraud Detection Techniques Every Organization Should Know
Fraud is an arms race. Account takeovers, synthetic identities, and organized fraud rings are just a few of the ways attackers are testing organizations’ defenses and looking for weak spots. Fortunately, there are established fraud detection techniques that enable companies in any industry to fight back. In this article, we’ll explore five of the most
What is Identity Intelligence? Techniques, Benefits, and Real-World Applications
Understanding who’s behind digital activity can shift the direction of an investigation. That’s the essence of identity intelligence: the process of collecting, enriching, and analyzing identifiers such as usernames, email addresses, and phone numbers to reveal real-world actors. With threats becoming more sophisticated and anonymous, identity intelligence has emerged as a crucial additional layer of
Corporate Security Compliance: How to Meet Regulations to Stay Compliant
Corporate security compliance is a critical part of operating in today’s regulatory environment. Whether you’re handling healthcare records, financial data, or cloud infrastructure for government clients, regulators expect proof that your security controls are working and that you understand the risks tied to your systems and data. This guide breaks down the key regulations businesses
10 Steps to Conduct a Corporate Security Risk Assessment in 2025
Every organization faces corporate security risks, but not every organization knows where those risks are or how to prioritize them. A well-executed corporate security risk assessment gives you the visibility needed to protect what matters most. This guide breaks down the process into 10 clear, actionable steps, from defining your scope to monitoring emerging threats.
9 Biggest Corporate Security Trends Shaping Modern Risk Management
Remote work, cloud sprawl, and supply chain dependencies have permanently reshaped the risk landscape, shifting where threats emerge and how they remain concealed. Meanwhile, threats are faster, more distributed, and more complex than ever. Staying ahead means rethinking your approach. The organizations leading the way are shifting from perimeter defense to identity-based security, from information