Lion Cipher Lab
OSINT on yourself: map your own digital footprint
- Threat Intel Analyst
- Beginner
- ~35 min
- Free · no account required
Why it matters
Open-source intelligence — OSINT — is the craft of learning about a target using only public, freely available sources: search engines, social media, public records, leaked data. It is the first move in almost every real attack, because before anyone phishes you or tries to reset your password, they read what the internet already says about you. The most ethical and useful way to learn OSINT is to run it on yourself: there is no consent problem, no legal grey area, and the subject you understand best is you. Doing so does two things at once. It shows you your own attack surface — the name,…
What you'll learn
- what OSINT is
- search-engine operators (site:, quotes, filetype:)
- checking your email against known breaches
- auditing social-media privacy exposure
- understanding data brokers
- seeing your footprint as attacker reconnaissance
Steps in this lab
- The one rule: research only yourself
- Search yourself the way an investigator would: operators, not just your name
- Check your email against known breaches (Have I Been Pwned)
- Audit what your social media actually exposes
- See what the data brokers already sell about you
- The payoff, part one: clean it up and lock it down
- The payoff, part two: this is exactly what an attacker does first
- Why this small skill is a big deal