Partners, suppliers and portfolio companies
New litigation, insolvency, ownership changes, sanctions designations and adverse media on the companies and people you depend on.
OSINT Monitoring Services: Alerts on People, Companies and Events
An investigation tells you what is true today. OSINT monitoring tells you when it stops being true: a new lawsuit, a sanctions designation, a fake account in your CEO's name, a protest planned outside your office.
- Counterparties and portfolios
- Adverse media and sanctions
- Brand, impersonation and disinformation
- Events, sites and travel
Short answer
OSINT monitoring is the continuous collection and review of open sources about subjects you care about, such as companies, people, brands, places or events, so you are told when something material changes. OSINT-S combines Molfar's Minos platform, which updates hourly, with analysts who verify and explain each alert before it reaches you.
What Can You Monitor With OSINT?
Five common monitoring scopes. Most clients start with one and add others as the value becomes clear.
Adverse media and sanctions screening
Ongoing negative-news monitoring after onboarding, so a clean check at day one does not become stale.
Adverse media screening →Brand, impersonation and disinformation
Fake accounts and domains, coordinated campaigns, leaks and hostile narratives about your company or executives.
Named executives and staff
Exposure of personal details and online signals relevant to the safety of named people, within a documented, proportionate scope.
Offices, sites, travel and events
Protests, incidents and local reporting around the places your people work or travel to.
Competitors and regulation
Product launches, hiring, tenders, regulatory moves and other public signals in a market you are entering or defending.
Is OSINT Monitoring Real-Time?
Close to it. The Minos platform updates hourly; an analyst then verifies what matters. True second-by-second alerting is a different product, and most business risks do not need it.
Real-time platforms such as Dataminr are built to be first on breaking events, which matters for crisis, travel-security and newsroom teams. Most monitoring questions are different: did this counterparty just get sued, is this new account impersonating our CEO, has this supplier been designated? For those, an hourly update plus an analyst's check gives fewer, better alerts.
Molfar's Minos platform provides hourly updates across its Watch, Risk, Profiler, Research and Response modules (Minos). If your case truly needs minute-by-minute alerting, we will say so and help you combine the two.
Monitoring is often the second step after other OSINT services: once an investigation or due diligence report is done, we keep watching the same subjects.
Why Monitoring Works: Signals Usually Appear in Public First
Before many incidents, the warning signs were visible in open sources. The problem was that nobody was watching, or nobody acted.
- A US Senate committee found that the January 6 attack on the Capitol was "planned in plain sight" on social media, and that warnings were not acted on in time (Senate HSGAC, 2023).
- On 24 February 2022, researchers at the Middlebury Institute spotted a traffic jam on Google Maps on the road from Belgorod toward Ukraine at 3:15 a.m., before the invasion was announced (Vice).
- In the 2025 World Security Report, 44% of chief security officers said they now monitor online threats, and 75% said their companies had been targeted by misinformation (Allied Universal).
How We Set Up OSINT Monitoring
In a week or two for most scopes: agree the watchlist and thresholds, connect the sources, test the alerts, then run and review.
- Define the watchlistCompanies, people, brands, keywords, places and events, each with a reason for being watched.
- Set thresholds and routingWhat counts as material, who receives which alerts, and how urgent items are escalated.
- Connect the sourcesRegistries, courts, media, social networks, messaging channels and specialist data relevant to each subject.
- Test and tuneA short trial period to cut noise and make sure nothing important is missed.
- Run with analyst reviewThe platform collects; an analyst verifies, adds context and writes the alert.
- Review regularlyPeriodic summaries, a check of the watchlist, and changes as your risks change.
What Does an OSINT Alert Look Like?
Short and specific: what happened, where it was found, why it matters to you, how confident we are, and what you may want to do.
Example alert (fictional)
Supplier director added to a sanctions list
What: A director of one of your watched suppliers was designated under a national sanctions program this morning.
Source: Official sanctions list, cross-checked with the corporate registry. Captures attached.
Why it matters: Payments to the supplier may now require a license or be prohibited, depending on ownership and control.
Confidence: High (identity matched on name, date of birth and directorship).
Suggested next step: Pause payments and ask your sanctions counsel to assess ownership and control.
Do I Get an OSINT Dashboard?
Yes, if you want one. Monitoring runs on Minos, which gives your team a dashboard with risk scores; many clients prefer alerts by email and a monthly summary.
Minos is Molfar's information-threat management platform. It scores risk from 0 to 100 and supports watching, research, profiling and response workflows (Minos). Its Brand Watch plan is listed at $350 a month (launch price; $500 list), and fuller plans are priced individually (Minos pricing). Analyst-reviewed monitoring through OSINT-S is quoted per scope.
OSINT Monitoring vs Media Monitoring Tools
Media monitoring tools count mentions. OSINT monitoring checks whether a signal is real, relevant and actionable, across many more source types than news and social media.
| Media and social listening tools | OSINT monitoring (OSINT-S) | |
|---|---|---|
| Sources | News, blogs, social media | Plus registries, courts, sanctions lists, messaging channels, leak and specialist data |
| Output | Mention counts, sentiment, dashboards | Verified alerts with context and a suggested action |
| Typical price | Brand24 $199–$599 a month; Meltwater median $25,800 a year (Brand24, Vendr) | Quoted on scope |
| Best for | Marketing and communications teams | Risk, compliance, security and legal teams |
Is It Legal to Monitor People and Companies?
Monitoring companies and public events raises few issues. Monitoring individuals needs a legitimate purpose, a proportionate scope and careful handling of personal data.
Under the GDPR, ongoing monitoring of named individuals normally relies on legitimate interests and has to pass a necessity and balancing test (EDPB Guidelines 1/2024). We document the reason each person is on a watchlist, limit what we collect to what the purpose needs, and review the list regularly. We do not monitor private accounts or messages, and we do not take on monitoring designed to track or intimidate individuals.
Know When Something Changes
Tell us what you need to watch and who should hear about it. We propose a scope, a trial period and a monthly price.
OSINT Monitoring FAQ
What is OSINT monitoring?
OSINT monitoring is the continuous collection and review of open sources about chosen subjects, such as companies, people, brands, places or events, so you are alerted when something material changes.
Is OSINT monitoring real-time?
Our platform updates hourly, and an analyst verifies alerts before they are sent. That is fast enough for most business risks. For minute-by-minute alerting on breaking events, specialized real-time platforms exist, and we can help you combine them.
What is a real-time OSINT platform?
A platform that detects and pushes alerts on events as they emerge in public data, often within minutes. Dataminr is the best-known example. These platforms are strong on speed and weaker on verification, which is why many teams add analyst review.
Can you monitor live events?
Yes. We can watch open sources around a conference, a site, a protest or a travel route and alert you to incidents and planned activity, within a documented scope.
How many alerts will we get?
That depends on the watchlist and thresholds. Our aim is fewer, better alerts: analysts filter out duplicates, irrelevant mentions and unverified claims.
How much does OSINT monitoring cost?
It is priced per month on scope. For context, Molfar's Minos Brand Watch plan is listed at $350 a month (launch price; $500 list), and media monitoring tools run from $199 a month to enterprise contracts worth tens of thousands a year.
Can you monitor Telegram channels?
Yes, where public channels and groups are relevant to your watchlist. We do not join private groups under false identities.
What is the difference between OSINT monitoring and threat intelligence?
Monitoring watches specific subjects you name. Threat intelligence studies the actors, campaigns and vulnerabilities that could target you, including ones you have not named yet.
Can you monitor a competitor?
Yes, using public information such as filings, product pages, job ads, tenders and media. We do not obtain confidential information.
Sources and Notes
- Minos by Molfar
- Minos pricing
- Molfar Intelligence: adverse media screening
- Molfar Intelligence: reputation management
- Molfar Intelligence: risk and security assessment
- US Senate HSGAC: Planned in Plain Sight (2023)
- Vice: Google Maps traffic and the Russian invasion (Feb 2022)
- Allied Universal: World Security Report 2025
- EDPB Guidelines 1/2024 on legitimate interest
- Brand24: prices
- Vendr: Meltwater
Sources checked 6 October 2026. OSINT-S is operated by Molfar Intelligence, a trading name of Molfar Limited (Companies House 13558891). Figures from Molfar are company statements, not independently audited.