Getting Started with Open Source Tools and Tips • Sayyara Mammadova

In this masterclass video, Sayyara Mammadova, associate director for capacity building at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), shares her approach to open source investigations.

From cultivating curiosity and deconstructing other investigators’ work to tracing online entities back to real people, Mammadova explains why open source reporting is never about using a single tool or source, but a combination of methods that reinforce and verify each other. The video will help you understand why ethics and operational security are non-negotiable when handling open source data, why continuous training keeps investigators sharp as tools evolve, and why an adaptive mindset matters more than any single tool, because tools change but the ability to find information doesn’t have to.

Credits:

• Interview: Sarah Ulrich
• Video Editing: Quentin Egloff
• Music: Lionel Marçal
• Filming: Ron Lopez – Reynald Ramirez – Hashim Hakeem
• Supervision and Coordination: Sandrine Rigaud
• Special thanks: Glenn Chong
• With the support of The Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung