This feature interview is originally published by CIO Review Europe.
The role of a digital forensics investigator in today’s cybersecurity landscape is similar to that of a detective going through a trail of evidence to solve a crime. However, to identify and analyse an organization’s fault lines and to prevent cyber threats proactively and efficiently, digital forensics experts require a bird’s eye view on all the relevant data in one place. Enabling just that is Maltego Technologies. The company’s namesake open-source intelligence (OSINT) and graphical link analysis platform empowers investigators by centrally gathering and connecting every piece of information for their investigation and displaying relationships and patterns across diverse datasets.
We specialize in consolidating investigative data into a single integrated platform, along with offering powerful visualization and collaborative capabilities to quickly zero in on relevant information. This empowers investigators to speed up and increase the precision of their investigations.
Dr. Philip Mayrhofer 🔗︎
CEO at Maltego Technologies GmbH 🔗︎
By adding Maltego to their toolkit, investigators can combine data enrichment, contextualization, and human analysis in a centralized location. Maltego offers the ability to easily connect data and functionalities from diverse sources using “Transforms,” complex query commands tailored to extract information from specific datasets. Via the “Transform Hub,” its data integrations marketplace, investigators can connect with disparate datasets from third-party intel providers, a variety of public sources (OSINT) as well as their own internal data. Maltego ́s neutrality, in this regard, attends to the needs of the investigators first—which facilitates the integration of competing data systems as well. Besides the data integration, the platform’s graphical analysis capabilities enable investigators to visualize and correlate information from separate sources without having to switch between platforms or interfaces.
Maltego further facilitates investigations by providing streamlining and automation functions for recurring queries and allows team members to connect for collaborative analysis. Due to its flexibility, Maltego can directly be integrated into any existing workflow, enabling investigators to pivot from one piece of evidence to the next, while leveraging their expertise and understanding of a case. As a result, Maltego users can reduce their crime analysis workflows from hours to minutes.
Equally commendable is the Maltego platform’s practical and user-friendly interface that can easily be used by investigators without core technical knowledge. However, if a client requires further assistance with the implementation or use of the platform, Maltego offers self-paced learning solutions, including free and paid on-demand courses and in-person training, as well as support for procurement, onboarding, and maintenance.
Today, Maltego’s offerings have found widespread use as a powerful tool for OSINT web research or cybercrime investigations across prominent government organizations worldwide, such as the German Federal Criminal Police. Maltego’s competencies are also facilitating cyber analysts, security professionals, investigative journalists, and researchers in deepening their analyses and streamlining their workflows.
To lower the entry barriers for customers, the company is easing the onboarding process through bundling data sources and creating domain-specific solutions. It also provides its platform in the form of a community-edition software version, which is free of charge, apart from the professional or enterprise-grade paid versions. Maltego’s forthcoming advanced space-time analytics features for crime investigation will further support its clients to enhance investigation workflows involving larger datasets.
