Reflecting on 2024: Our Continued Journey of Growth and Innovation

It’s time to reflect on another productive year for Skopenow. Over the past twelve months, we stayed true to our mission of modernizing investigations through scalable open-source intelligence, marking a period of exciting growth, innovation, and deepened engagement with the OSINT community. From launching new capabilities to expanding our impact in key industries, we’ve hit a number of new milestones.

One of the most notable developments was the launch of Grid, our situational awareness tool that helps investigators gain a real-time understanding of their environment. With Grid, Skopenow has evolved into a complete OSINT platform, enabling users to perform everything from initial threat detection to comprehensive internet investigations—all through a single pane of glass. 

We’ve also expanded Workbench’s functionality, increasing our data source coverage to deliver even sharper results. These new sources now cover account results from more major platforms, including household names, providing investigators with a more comprehensive view of their subjects. Furthermore, we’ve made great strides in our behavior analysis capabilities, introducing brand-new indicators while substantially improving the accuracy and reliability of our existing features.

2024 was also a year of gaining new traction in key segments. In campus safety, we’ve seen our solutions help security teams secure educational environments by addressing the unique risks they face. From protecting students to safeguarding campuses against emerging threats, Skopenow has enabled security professionals to process vast amounts of public data efficiently. Similarly, our work in financial crimes and anti-money laundering has demonstrated how OSINT can support institutions in tackling recent upticks in fraud, money laundering, and other financial threats. We’re also proud to have supported more organizations in safeguarding their executives and employees, giving corporate security teams the ability to anticipate and neutralize threats before they escalate. These advancements demonstrate the transformative potential of OSINT in tackling today’s most pressing security challenges.

This year, our accomplishments garnered broad recognition. We were honored to be featured in the Datos Fintech Spotlight as well as FinTech Global’s InsurTech 100, showcasing the impact of our innovations in both insurance and financial crime investigations. These accolades are a testament to the tireless efforts of our team, the trust of our customers, and our shared commitment to advancing the field of OSINT.

Beyond product launches and industry expansion, 2024 was a year of sharing our OSINT expertise through educational content and events. Take a look at our best from this year:

Top 5 Blogs of 2024

1. Tackling the Flow of Fentanyl into the US with OSINT - I examined how OSINT can be used to identify and disrupt fentanyl trafficking networks by researching supply chains of precursor chemicals and distribution points.
2. Privè Global Events Exposed in a Multisport Hospitality Scam - Steve Adams unpacked how fraudsters executed a ticketing scheme that impacted major sporting events and how OSINT techniques can be used to detect similar scams and protect consumers.
3. How to Ensure Campus Safety with 360-Degree Situational Awareness - Nick Kauffmann outlined how situational awareness tools can be leveraged by security teams to process public data feeds in near real-time to protect campuses, students, and staff against emerging threats.
4. Actioning Publicly Available Information: The Top 5 Obstacles Facing The Intelligence Community - Steve Adams discussed the biggest hurdles faced by the intelligence community when integrating OSINT into workflows and strategies to overcome them to better leverage publicly available information.
5. How OSINT Can Combat the Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals Trade - Alex Hartnett explored how OSINT can be harnessed to identify and dismantle the criminal networks responsible for the production and distribution of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, protecting public health and supporting law enforcement operations.

Top 5 Webinars to Watch in 2024

1. OSINT Workflows for Event Security - This webinar covered strategies for using OSINT to enhance event security through pre-event assessments, venue profiling, and real-time threat detection, offering valuable insights for those responsible for event security.
2. OSINT Workflows for Counterterrorism - In this session, we explored how OSINT can be applied to identify extremist content, research radicalization and recruitment patterns, and analyze terrorist networks, supporting the early detection of warning signs that can help prevent incidents.
3. OSINT Workflows for Executive Protection - We showed how to leverage OSINT for executive protection, covering techniques to conduct personal threat assessments and effectively scan online content for potential risks to high-profile individuals.
4. OSINT Live 2024 - Five leading OSINT experts delivered individual sessions exploring tools, techniques, methodologies, and the latest innovations during our annual flagship event.
5. OSINT for Crime Disruption - Criminals use the internet to facilitate illicit activities, but that can be turned against them. This webinar explored effective OSINT workflows for disrupting crime.

As we look ahead to 2025, we remain focused on advancing the field of OSINT and supporting the investigative community with innovative solutions. Thank you for being part of our journey this year—we wish you a happy and successful new year. 

PS - we have something exciting coming in mid-January…stay tuned!