Catching the backscatter of conversation, keywords and data dumps have always been one of the driving goals in our OIMonitor project. While others have been quick to highlight one particular capability over the other, we have slowly continued the innovation we set forth in 2010/2011 in 24/7 monitoring.
When we started our project, ShadowDragon’s monitor (OIMonitor) only had a collection of platforms (chat/IRC, Paste sites, blogs, RSS). As the world has changed, so have the platforms we need to monitor–and I am proud to announce the addition of our latest capability.
We have found as actors (good or bad) move from one platform to the next, chat platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram have been the go-to when there are disruptions and with this, the need to monitor both forums and more modern dialogue protocols has emerged.
This month we released the integration into monitoring Telegram, and I’m sure this will be seen as the norm moving forward in the industry. We have also added in some interesting OSINT capabilities in our SocialNet platform for more hardened and encrypted/secure communication protocols. (Please ping us on this).
The integration into Telegram has enabled robust insights into both brand monitoring and fraud monitoring, as well as uses in counter-terrorism applications.
We understand that analysts can’t spend their valuable time figuring out the most scalable solution for collection, and conversely we don’t know what will be relevant in the protocol or data source that the client might want to peer into or key upon. Over the years, we have pushed extra resources to ensure each new collection source not only works in the most agnostic and robust manner, but also allows for keyword and phrase analysis, regardless of the language utilized.
The full spectrum collection and pivot-based capabilities we offer from both SocialNet and OIMonitor enable collection from numerous chat services with near-real-time analysis on events to enable quick evaluation and responses.
Our approach is not to be a silver bullet, but to enable the customer to collect as they go and tag relevant information that can generate leads in the future. Analyzed artifacts are shared in the original form, giving the analyst full context and at times screenshots of the platform being monitored, capturing valuable data.
We hope the addition of this new data source (Telegram) will be welcomed within the information security community as well as with all of our clients, OEM integrations and resellers alike.
I am very proud of the team for pushing the innovation our customers ask for every day.
