OSINT Tracing: Where Was This Photo Taken?

OSINT Tracking: Where Was This Photo Taken?

In this lab, you will apply real OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) techniques to determine the geographic location of an image. The photograph was anonymously shared on a server linked to suspicious activities. Your mission as a cybersecurity analyst is to precisely identify the city and country where the image was taken.

In this lab you will learn:

• Strategic visual analysis of urban images
• Geolocation using OSINT

🌱 How to Start This Lab

👉 This challenge is solved from your browser, but the final validation is done inside the brokendb virtual machine.

1. If you don't have it yet, download the virtual machine from this link:

1https://storage.googleapis.com/cybersecurity-machines/brokendb-lab.ova

1. Import the virtual machine into VirtualBox or VMware.
2. When you need to validate, start the VM and log in as user student:4geeks-lab.

Your Mission

This is the only clue left by the attacker:

location

Download it and study it carefully. Remember, your task is to find the city and country where this photo was taken.

Validation

When you think you know the city and country, go to the brokendb virtual machine and run the validator in the console with the following command:

1validate-location

The validator will ask you to enter the city and country in the following format:

1city,country

Example:

1paris,france

If your answer is correct, you will get what you are looking for.

This exercise simulates a real analysis where you must extract geographic intelligence from an image without context. It's not enough to just look: you must think like an analyst, deduce from visual clues, and corroborate hypotheses with open tools.

Are you ready to look beyond the obvious?

Good luck, Analyst!