Privacy Concerns and Acceptance Factors of OSINT for Cybersecurity: A Representative Survey

Abstract

The use of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) to monitor and detect cybersecurity threats is gaining popularity among many organizations. This is especially relevant to monitor cyber threats for critical and public infrastructure services. However, most of the systems use publicly available data, gathered on social media and other open sources. Therefore, the acceptance of OSINT systems by users, as well as the conditions which influence the acceptance are relevant for the development of OSINT systems for cybersecurity. We conducted a survey (N=1,093), in which we asked the participants about their acceptance of OSINT systems, their perceived need for surveillance, as well as their privacy behavior and concerns. Further, we tested if the awareness of OSINT is an interactive factor that affects other factors. Our results indicate that cyber threat perception and the perceived need for OSINT are positively related to acceptance, while privacy concerns are negatively related. The awareness of OSINT, however, has only affected people with privacy concerns. Here, especially high OSINT awareness and limited privacy concerns were associated with higher OSINT acceptance. Lastly, we provide implications for further research and the use of OSINT systems for cybersecurity by authorities. As OSINT is a framework rather than a single technology, approaches can be selected and confederated to adhere to data minimization and anonymization as well as to leverage improvements in privacy-preserving computation and machine learning innovations. Regarding the use of OSINT, we support approaches that provide transparency to people regarding the use of the systems and the data they gather.

ORIGINAL PUBLICATION Riebe, T., Biselli, T., Kaufhold, M.-A., & Reuter, C. (2023). Privacy Concerns and Acceptance Factors of OSINT for Cybersecurity: A Representative Survey. Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PoPETs). https://doi.org/10.56553/popets-2023-0028