Frequently Asked Questions

Welcome to the Liferaft FAQ. Here, you’ll find clear answers to the most common questions about our open-source intelligence (OSINT) platform — what it does, how it works, and how it helps security teams detect threats earlier and respond with confidence.

Whether you’re exploring data coverage, integrations, privacy practices, or deployment, this guide is designed to give you quick, straightforward insights. And if you need more details, our team is always here to help.

Platform & Capabilities

Your security team can’t respond to what it can’t see. This section covers the fundamentals of what Liferaft is, how it works, and what it monitors — from mainstream social media and blogs to deep and dark web sources. Here you’ll find answers about core capabilities, data coverage, use cases, and how Liferaft differs from traditional tools.

What is Liferaft?

Liferaft is an open-source intelligence (OSINT) platform that helps organizations detect and respond to risk before it escalates. It continuously monitors social media, blogs, forums, alternative networks, and even hard-to-reach areas like the deep and dark web. The result is a single, actionable view of your threat landscape, with alerts, dashboards, and tools designed to help security teams make faster, more confident decisions.

What types of companies use Liferaft?

Liferaft is built to scale. We’re trusted by smaller in-house security teams and Fortune 100 enterprises, including companies in the Top 10. Organizations across industries like finance, energy, technology, biotech, sports and entertainment, retail, manufacturing, and critical infrastructure use Liferaft to protect people, operations, and reputation. With flexible packaging and enterprise-grade controls, you can start small and expand as your security program grows.

What sources does Liferaft cover?

Liferaft monitors a broad range of publicly available online data to give you a complete view of your threat landscape. This includes mainstream social media, blogs, forums, message boards, alternative and fringe platforms, news sites, and even hard-to-reach deep and dark web content. With Alt Social+, Liferaft delivers up to 1,000% more visibility and 5× more relevant intelligence from across the open, deep, and dark web.

Does Liferaft monitor the deep and dark web?

Yes. Deep Web Search targets topic-specific groups and channels, and Dark Web Search provides access to scraped and cached dark-web content inside the platform for faster triage, alerting, and reporting. For safe, anonymous follow-up on source content, Liferaft integrates with Authentic8 (A8) so analysts can verify context without exposing their identity or network.

What types of data are most commonly found on the dark web?

The dark web is often used to trade or leak sensitive and illicit data. Common examples include stolen credentials and passwords, credit card numbers, personally identifiable information (PII), leaked corporate data, breach records, and even exploit kits or ransomware tools shared by threat actors. Liferaft’s Dark Web Search brings this activity into view by scraping and caching relevant content, while Deep Web Search targets closed groups and niche forums — giving your team early visibility into threats before they reach the surface.

Does Liferaft combine surface, deep, and dark web monitoring?

Yes. Liferaft unifies monitoring across surface web sources (social media, blogs, news, alternative platforms), deep web content (topic-based groups, private forums, niche communities), and dark web data (scraped and cached marketplaces, dumps, and leaks). This comprehensive visibility helps you uncover hidden threats, monitor emerging chatter, and detect risks earlier than with surface-only solutions.

Does the platform support multiple languages and translation?

Yes. Liferaft is built for global monitoring, with support for multiple languages across its collection capabilities. The platform detects and analyzes content in numerous languages, helping teams track activity across geographies and regions. Paired with Global Awareness and sentiment analysis, this multilingual support ensures you can understand context and risk even when threats originate in different languages so nothing important slips through the cracks.

How is Liferaft different from social listening or brand-monitoring tools?

Social listening tools are designed for marketing, tracking mentions, hashtags, and customer sentiment across mainstream platforms. Liferaft is built for security and risk intelligence, monitoring mainstream social media and more niche spaces like blogs, forums, fringe networks, and the deep and dark web spaces where threats often emerge. Our workflows are purpose-built for threat detection, investigations, and incident response, helping security teams connect online activity to real-world risk. You can read more on this topic here.

How does Liferaft differ from traditional threat intelligence feeds?

Traditional intelligence feeds often focus on isolated data points or predefined sources, which can make them reactive and hard to contextualize Liferaft goes further. It collects and analyzes data from surface, deep, and dark web sources, adds AI-driven enrichment (sentiment, clustering, deduplication), and delivers insights that are relevant, actionable, and tied to real-world risks. Plus, with features like Dossiers, dashboards, and investigation tools, Liferaft supports the entire intelligence lifecycle, from detection to decision.

What’s included in your platform plans?

All Liferaft plans include the same core features to help your team detect, investigate, and respond to threats effectively. Every plan includes:

OSINT Monitoring: Continuous collection across social media, blogs, forums, fringe platforms, and the deep and dark web.
Alerts & Feeds: Customizable Alerts, Curated Feeds, and Following for real-time visibility.
Investigation Tools: Dossiers, Dashboards, and Social Search to organize intelligence and speed investigations.
AI Capabilities: Insights Digest and Alert Dedupe to cut noise and surface what matters.

The main differences between plans come down to data volume (how much you can collect and analyze) and access to premium add-ons. Premium features include Global Awareness, People Search, Public Records, and integrations with platforms like Kaseware, Resolver, Topo, and Everbridge. Liferaft is designed to scale alongside your organization, allowing you to expand capabilities as your security program matures.

Do you offer expert help, or is it just software?

Liferaft is more than software, it’s a partnership. Every customer is paired with a dedicated Customer Success Manager to guide onboarding, training, and ongoing optimization. Our in-house intelligence experts act as an extension of your team, helping with configuration, analysis, and best practices. Whether it’s building queries, interpreting insights, or refining workflows, we’re here to support you, ensuring you have both the technology and expertise to stay ahead of risk.

Threat Detection & Response

In an age where threats emerge and escalate online in minutes, speed and visibility are everything. This section explains how Liferaft helps teams detect early warning signs, reduce noise, and respond quickly, whether it’s executive impersonation, brand abuse, civil unrest, or coordinated misinformation. Explore how the platform delivers real-time alerts and actionable insights that keep your organization ahead of risk.

How does Liferaft help organizations detect emerging threats?

Liferaft continuously collects publicly available data and flags activity based on keywords, entities, locations, or risk categories you define. Features like Global Awareness provide real-time location-based alerts, while Curated Feeds surface local incidents as they unfold. Combined with AI-powered tools like Insights Digest and Live Insights, your team can quickly identify suspicious behavior, misinformation, or planned disruptions before they become incidents.

How does Liferaft help reduce noise so security teams focus on real threats?

Liferaft’s intelligence tools are designed to cut through the noise. Alert Dedupe automatically removes duplicates, reducing alert volume by up to 60%. Insights Digest clusters related data into concise summaries, while LLM-powered tagging and sentiment analysis help classify risk levels automatically. The result: fewer false positives, more relevant alerts, and faster decision-making.

How fast will we receive alerts?

Liferaft’s monitoring runs continuously, so your team is notified as soon as relevant activity is detected. Alerts and summaries for Global Awareness, Queries, Followings, and deep/dark web monitoring are delivered in near real time through your preferred channels, including email, text, and Slack notifications. While delivery times can vary slightly based on the source, the platform is designed to surface critical intelligence quickly so your team can triage, investigate, and respond without delay.

Does Liferaft provide granular control over threat intelligence alerts?

Yes. Liferaft gives you complete control over how and when alerts are triggered. You can define the specific keywords, entities, risk categories, or locations you care about and receive notifications when those conditions are met. Alerts can also be tailored by severity or topic, ensuring your team focuses on high-priority threats without being overwhelmed by noise. This flexibility allows organizations to align monitoring and alerting to their unique risk profile and operational priorities.

How does Liferaft detect and respond to executive impersonation online?

Liferaft helps you identify fake accounts and impersonation attempts quickly. You can set up Queries to track names, job titles, and key identifiers tied to executives. The platform monitors mainstream and fringe social media, as well as deep and dark web sources, to catch impersonation attempts early. Alerts notify you in real time, while Dossiers centralize evidence and streamline escalation — helping legal, comms, or protective teams act fast.

How does Liferaft support global monitoring and visibility?

Global threats require global visibility. Liferaft is designed to monitor across multiple languages, geographies, and platforms, from mainstream social media to regional networks and alternative communities. You can track risk around specific locations or assets, visualize incidents on interactive maps, and receive alerts within custom geographic radii, helping security teams act locally while maintaining a global threat picture.

Can Liferaft provide real-time monitoring for public safety risks?

Yes. Liferaft continuously monitors online activity across mainstream social media, blogs, forums, and deep and dark web sources for early signs of public safety concerns. Using geospatial intelligence and custom alert parameters, teams can track threats like civil unrest, violent rhetoric, or coordinated activity near key locations. Real-time alerts and dashboards deliver actionable visibility, helping organizations and public safety teams respond proactively before incidents unfold.

How does Liferaft streamline incident escalation?

Liferaft reduces friction in the escalation process. Live Insights flags priority risks in real time, Alert Dedupe cuts duplicate notifications by up to 60%, and Insights Digest organizes related incidents into actionable clusters. Once an incident is validated, you can escalate internally with Slack or email alerts, or document it directly into a Dossier for coordinated response across teams.

How does Liferaft support brand protection and prevent online abuse?

Liferaft’s wide-ranging data coverage, including alternative platforms, blogs, and fringe forums, helps you identify brand misuse, impersonation, or coordinated misinformation campaigns early. Sentiment Intelligence tracks shifts in public perception, while advanced filtering lets you focus on specific narratives or hashtags. When threats arise, you can investigate them deeper with Dossiers and share findings quickly with communications or legal teams.

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How can companies monitor civil unrest?

With Global Awareness, teams can visualize and monitor potential unrest activity around specific sites, offices, or events. Real-time alerts notify you of new mentions within a defined radius, while Curated Feeds provide region-specific updates from official sources like emergency services and news outlets. Paired with Queries for keywords or organizations, this gives you early warning of potential disruptions and the context needed to plan an appropriate response.

What Liferaft Doesn’t Do & Why It Matters

Liferaft is built to do one thing exceptionally well: help security teams detect, investigate, and understand external threats before they become problems. But no tool can (or should) do everything. This section clarifies what’s outside Liferaft’s scope and why that focus matters. Learn where our platform ends and how integrations, partnerships, or complementary technologies can fill the gap — ensuring you build a security stack that’s powerful, purpose-driven, and tailored to your needs.