Rae Baker: Graphic Designer Turned Senior OSINT Analyst & Educator

After spending more than 15 years as a graphic designer, Rae Baker decided that it was time for a career change. Now, she is passionate about corporate reconnaissance as well as scam/fraud tracking and currently works as a Senior Open Source Intelligence Analyst for a large consulting firm. As an OSINT Curious Advisory Board member, Rae also works closely with other OSINT practitioners in the field to educate and inspire those within the OSINT community. Additionally, she is the Open Source Intelligence team lead with Operation Safe Escape, which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit comprising of security professionals tasked with keeping domestic violence victims hidden from their abusers, a volunteer with Innocent Lives Foundation, as well as a Trace Labs Black Badge winner. In this interview, we will dive into her experiences as someone starting in OSINT from scratch and becoming a well-known OSINT blogger, researcher, and advocate and her tips and recommendations for those who are on the same path. 0:00 Welcome! 1:33 Tell us about yourself! 3:33 How did you get into OSINT and what kept you in the field? 6:05 How do you pick your research topics? 7:20 Tell us about your blog "Wondersmith Rae"! 8:16 Would you tell us a bit about a recent investigation you dived into? 10:38 How did you get into martitime OSINT? 13:17 What kind of tools do you use for maritime investigations? 14:37 What are good OSINT resources you recommend? 16:32 Any tips or suggestions about writing blogs? 18:31 What are the 3 most important things you would share with OSINT practitioners? 23:55 Any suggestions for OSINT beginners? 25:40 Do you feel struggled finding free tools available for your investigations? ■ About The Pivot Brought to you by Maltego, The Pivot deep dives into topics pivoting from information security to the criminal underground. Each episode features interviews with experts from the industry and research fields and explores how they connect the dots. ■ About Maltego Used by investigators worldwide, Maltego is a graphical link analysis tool that allows users to mine, merge, and map data from OSINT and third-party data integrations for all sorts of investigations—cybersecurity, person of interest, fraud, and more. The podcast streams free on Spotify. You can also watch it all go down on YouTube. Don't forget to subscribe to our Twitter and LinkedIn to stay on top of our latest updates, tutorials, webinars, and deep dives. For more information about Maltego, visit our website.