CSA 210 - Open Source Cyber Intelligence

(3 credits)

The sheer amount of online information available about any individual is both impressive and disturbing. With nothing more than a name or email address, it is possible to recover significant amounts of personal information. This course provides the student with the skill-set and advanced knowledge base to employ online search techniques and strategies, and engage in detailed information gathering from the surface web, deep web, and dark web. Students will have extensive hands-on experience with a wide array of web-based informational sources, systems, and tools commonly referred to as OSINT, or Open Source Intelligence Techniques. This course is a necessity for Cyber Security majors (digital forensics and ethical hackers), but has significant and extremely relevant application to a variety of other disciplines and professions, such as private investigators, law enforcement, attorneys, paralegals, sales and marketing, management professionals, financial industry professionals, health care, human resources directors, and others. It blends critical thinking and reasoning skills with cutting-edge OSINT analytic techniques and tools. Prerequisite(s): CSA 101 Spring (alternate years).