Eight Excel and Google Sheets Techniques Every OSINT Analyst Should Know
The spreadsheet is the most-used tool in OSINT yet the least discussed. Eight common challenges, eight simple fixes.
Welcome back,
This week, we look at a tool everyone knows and uses but very interestingly nobody places on any OSINT resources list. The ‘tool’ is called spreadsheet.
Excel or Google Sheets do more OSINT groundwork than any dedicated platform, simply because every analyst already has one open.
We walk you through eight common tasks, from data validation to cross-sheet lookups, and the eight simple solutions behind them.
And, as usual, we highlight some exciting job opportunities, plus the latest tradecraft tips and industry news from last week.
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Job Opportunities
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OSINT Tradecraft Tips & Industry News
Everything you need to know from the past seven days.
We came across a GitHub project called ShadowBroker, an open source dashboard that pulls dozens of public feeds (private jets, satellites, ships, CCTV, GPS jamming, and others) into one unified map. Usual caveats apply, as we have not tested this tool ourselves, but wanted to highlight it for awareness | explore the GitHub repository here
The OSINT Foundation published an article supporting professionalization and standardization of open source intelligence in U.S. national security | read the guide here
Google announced it is rolling back its new Image Generation feature in Google Earth after users shared AI-generated screenshots that appeared to violate its polices | read the statement here
ISD launched the Authoritarian Interference Tracker. It maps and documents over 290 incidents of Russian, Chinese, and Iranian interference in democracies since 2022 | explore it here
Randy Nixon, President of Janes, argues the next era of intelligence competition will be won by organizations that combine speed and trust. In other words, those who can make decision-makers move fast at ‘machine speed’ without slowing down to double-check flawed inputs | read the full analysis here
The NATO Defence Strategic Communications published a new volume, which traces how the European External Action Service (EEAS) defined Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) and discusses its evolution and operational implications | read the volume here
Carl Miller, Hannah Perry and Flynn Devine’s report warns that hostile states are exploiting “RAG poisoning”, which is a technique to manipulate online sources so AI models retrieve and amplify false narratives | read the report here
Dimitry P. shared on LinkedIn how the FBI used Microsoft’s Global Device Identified (GDID), which is a persistent Windows device fingerprint, to track down alleged Scattered Spider member Peter S. across multiple countries, and despite his VPN use and rotating IPs | read the full story here
Eight Excel and Google Sheets Techniques Every OSINT Analyst Should Know
It is fair to say that every OSINT professional has used a spreadsheet for their work. Yet no OSINT resources list features Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. Funnily enough, Google Sheets itself is sometimes the tool used to build those lists, but never appears on one.
That gap is a problem. Resources lists favor dedicated tools, GitHub repositories, Python scripts, but the tool doing the actual groundwork, cleaning exports, referencing lists, flagging what matters, is usually just Google Sheets or Excel. Most professionals use only a friction of what it can do, and those new to the field often look to Python and GitHub first instead of learning the basics.
This week, we cover eight common tasks and the eight simple solutions behind them. Basic fixes, a few advanced ones, all built for the kind of messy data in OSINT workflow actually produces. The full breakdown, including a workbook, below.
