Automated Web Intelligence Platforms: What are they used for?

According to Frost & Sullivan, the global artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Web intelligence market is booming. That’s not surprising, since a Web Intelligence Platform is a powerful solution for collecting and analyzing data of endless digital channels on the open, deep, and dark web, including social media and online platforms and message boards for investigations. More specifically, threat actors, internationally-recognized crime syndicates, violent street gangs, etc., are using the deep web to hide their identity and conduct their illicit activities.

This poses a huge problem for law enforcement personnel who need to access the dark web to investigate cases and conduct sting operations. This entails collecting and analyzing huge amounts of data, which is a tedious and time-consuming process unless an AI-powered WEBINT platform is used. Such a Web intelligence platform can also detect any correlations between events or relationships among people to piece together a comprehensive picture. That’s why more and more law enforcement and government agencies are implementing and using a WEBINT platform for automated intelligence such as the AI-powered WEBINT platform of Cobwebs.

Such a platform can automatically search for relevant intelligence on all layers of the internet as well as on social media platforms and collect and analyze this big data to generate crucial insights for active and ongoing investigations. These critical insights can be saved in a digital case folder to be shared and acted upon. Investigators can also receive alerts regarding real-time events for situational awareness in the GUI of the WEBINT platform or by email. The generated insights can also be used for mapping the connections between several threat actors or groups to analyze their relationships and connecting them to different events and social circles.

To illustrate, a certain threat actor has 50 mutual friends on social media in common with another person. These 50 mutual connections are members of the same drug trafficking ring. By using specific keywords, the platform not only maps the structure of the drug trafficking ring (indicating the kingpins) but can also follow their digital footprints to find out where they were and where they are planning to go. Using digital fingerprint reconstruction helps to fine-tune the investigation and zoom in on the kingpins to put an end to their illicit activities. Such a threat actor can be identified and located by the WEBINT platform through the real-time analysis of billions of digital data points. For instance, a social media photo taken and posted on a dark web platform by a kingpin can have recognizable details such as buildings, street signs, or landmarks. Investigators can use this information to map out the location where that photo was taken, which could provide a vital clue to crack the case.


The automated web intelligence platform of Cobwebs also helps investigators and analysts to identify new threat actors and groups connected to the human trafficking ring that can pose new threats using its automated, advanced search capabilities. This provides law enforcement with deep insights and substantial intelligence, including locations, context, internal relations, group structures, hierarchies, and more.
To recap, a Web Intelligence Platform assists law enforcement, governments, and national security agencies in detecting and halting the illicit activities of threat actors and organized crime organizations. Investigators and analysts can search for and access data from the open, deep, and dark web and social media platforms for their investigations. But also financial institutions use the Web Intelligence Platform of Cobwebs to gain actionable insights regarding customers, employees, and partners during the onboarding process. Last but not least, the WEBINT platform can be used by local authorities for predicting e.g., the spread of a pandemic or social unrest allowing decision-makers to respond proactively.