Capacity-Building Training on Cybercrime Investigation

The Law Enforcement Academy of the Republic of Uzbekistan, in collaboration with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and with the support of a U.S. program, organized a training on the topic: "Methods of Gathering Information from Open Sources (OSINT)" for employees of the General Prosecutor's Office, the Department for Combating Economic Crimes, the State Security Service, and the faculty of the Academy.

The training was opened by Chris Felton, Senior Counter-Terrorism Diplomat for Asia from the United Kingdom, and Dean McMaster, Regional Counter-Terrorism Coordinator from the Ministry of Defence.

The four-day training was conducted in the Academy's cyber laboratory by experts from the non-governmental, non-profit organization Center for Resilience, Benjamin den Braber and Riccardo Valle.

Participants were introduced to the key aspects and methods of searching for forensically significant information (images, photos, and their characteristic features) from open sources and social networks, as well as chronolocation, geospatial searching, and identifying individuals involved in a crime.

During the training, participants learned how to determine the location of a crime based on characteristic features in crime-related images, using open sources, and how to properly utilize OSINT tools (Google Maps, Yandex Maps, Google Earth Pro) necessary for the search process.

The training also covered topics such as verifying the integrity of digital data or files, determining the state of creation, distribution, and modification of an object and related geodata through metadata; identifying and assessing the location, activity of an object, or the place of creation of an item using "Google Earth Pro" software; analyzing information on social networks, and studying the relationships between groups and organizations by identifying individuals involved in the crime and those who have contacted them.

At the end of the training, recommendations were provided on how to apply the knowledge gained, and participants expressed their views on the need for such events to be held regularly in a more extensive format.

Upon completion of the event, participants were awarded certificates for completing the course.