With advanced OSINT software, analysts can extract and analyze data from one of the world's most widely used social networks: Facebook.
Facebook represents an enormous wealth of information for OSINT analysts. Launched in 2004, Facebook boasts nearly 3 billion active monthly users, and almost 70% of Americans have a Facebook account. To put it into greater perspective, except YouTube- no other major platform can compete with Facebook in terms of usage.
The numbers mean that Facebook can be an informational boon for social media investigations and an inherent navigational challenge. Billions of location-tagged posts, photos, stories, and text posts are added to the platform daily, and these posts go back nearly 20 years.
That's where OSINT software tools come in - advanced social media monitoring tools designed specifically for extracting, analyzing, and visualizing Facebook data. In this article, we'll take a look at the top nine OSINT software tools for Facebook, offering a guide to help you unlock the potential of this powerful social media platform.
Who posted what? This social media investigation tool is a private Facebook keyword search for people who work in the public interest arena. Once an investigator accesses the website, they can search for keywords corresponding to specific dates. Who posted what? is handy for identifying historical data on current and past threats. Additionally, it provides more recent information on imminent security threats.
The Facebook Video Downloader is a simple and helpful OSINT software tool that quickly downloads any video posts to Facebook for immediate or future use. Type in the Facebook link, click on the “download video” button, and you’ll have a concrete file of any video on the platform.
This unique social media investigation tool was created in response to the 2019 Facebook data breach, wherein a large dataset of approximately 533 million Facebook accounts was made available for download. With a quick search, investigators can check HaveIBeenZuckered to see if phone numbers belonging to their company, executives, and personnel were included in this breach. This check ensures no current threat spillover from the 2019 event.
Search is Back is an OSINT software tool that allows users to search for people and events on Facebook. This social media investigation tool also has additional search filters that can be useful for more specific results, including location, gender, job title, school or company, and spoken language. The search is easy to use and requires just a few clicks. Security personnel can utilize as many search fields as needed to find results corresponding to their investigations.
Namechk is a social media investigation tool used with Facebook and other social media platforms to search for an individual's various online personas. Just enter a username from Facebook (or another social media account), and Namechk will sift through multiple online platforms to find user profiles that match the initially provided information. Though it can be used casually to locate old friends or acquaintances, in the security world, it helps to identify more details on a bad actor or possible threat to the company or personnel.
Facebook Graph Searcher is another social media monitoring tool that allows investigators to identify posts in a given timeframe – a practical application considering that Facebook has nearly 20 years of archived posts. This tool also has the option to sort the results by the user ID as well as a keyword so that investigators can find both historic posts from a specified individual or group or posts about a specific topic like “Paris Attacks” or “Pipeline data breach.”
Facebook Directory is part of Facebook’s inherent search tools to find more information on individuals by location, name, event, group, or job title. The major limitation is that this tool is ever-changing. First launched in 2011, today, specific categories may be unavailable or limited as Facebook constantly evolves with an influx of new users, pages, and groups.
Graph. Tips is a social media investigation tool created to provide a simple but thorough way to comb through Facebook. This OSINT software tool enables investigators to search through posts, videos, places, pages, events, and more. Although it has a great suite of search filters to make online investigations easier (with the ability to narrow down results by keyword, date, location, and group), investigators must search through each post type individually. In other words, you'll need to conduct a stand-alone search for posts and videos, etc. It can be a bit time-consuming.
LifeRaft’s Navigator stands out amongst social media monitoring tools because security teams and investigators require no excess work. Instead, this automated tool constantly combs through the depths of Facebook - and based on a security team’s unique parameters - to identify any possible threats (past or present) hidden in the popular social media platform.
Best of all, Navigator is not limited in scope. Navigator investigates all of the popular social media channels like Facebook, as well as the alternative social media websites that can often escape detection. In addition, Navigator sifts through countless posts and data on blogs, message boards, classified sites, forums, and dark web sources, so every corner of the internet is covered.
Intelligence-led OSINT investigations require analysts to be meticulous and leave no stone unturned, and that is precisely what Navigator is designed to do. With real-time alerts via various methods, your security team gets instant notifications of posts and data relevant to your company's and people's safety.
The bottom line: The emergence of alt-tech social networks notwithstanding, Facebook is not going anywhere.
The sheer number of users means analysts should not underestimate Facebook's potential as a threat-intelligence platform.
While these tools do not present a silver security bullet, in providing a place to start, we hope to equip you with the tools to take your investigations to the next level.
Whether researching a company, tracking a competitor, or investigating a potential threat, these social media monitoring tools will help you unlock Facebook’s potential as an OSINT platform.
Contact us today to learn more about our product and how adopting an intelligence-led OSINT strategy can help improve your decision-making and uncover valuable insights.