A treasure trove of useful websites to help you with your online Due Diligence enquiries. We have broken down the websites into headings to help your research efforts.
IMPORTANT: Links to other websites are made available for convenience of investigators and researchers. They do not constitute endorsement of material at those sites, or any associated organisation, product or service. As with all links, please exercise caution. Care should always be exercised. We will not be held liable or responsible if they later prove to be malicious.
See also our AML Compliance Glossary here
There are an abundance of these sorts of tools online, but this appears to do a reasonable job.
Probably the best known, but is it the best?
Results can be quite different to that of ChatGPT
Decentralised AI search
Clustering search engine that display categorical search data in an explorer pane to the left of the search results
The great Google, hard to see how anything will better than it but remember for greater coverage you have to use other search resources!
Remember that results may differ when you use a different Google domain; consider others. A full list can be found here:
Search engines are like golf clubs, they all work very slightly differently. Be prepared to use others, and don’t just use Google.
Like Google, Yahoo indexes the Web and makes information from Web pages available to Web searches.
Good alternative search engine (Russian)
Meta search engine (and apparently private)
Meta search engine, stops IP tracking and direct advertisements based on search history
Search privately, receive better results and get rewarded with the Presearch decentralized search engine, powered by blockchain technology.
Same features as Duck Duck Go however the user interface is more simple
IMPORTANT: Links to other websites are made available for convenience of investigators and researchers. They do not constitute endorsement of material at those sites, or any associated organisation, product or service. As with all links, please exercise caution. Care should always be exercised. We will not be held liable or responsible if they later prove to be malicious.
Please note, researching in China, is difficult but not impossible. Be aware that if you use a VPN you may encounter some difficulties. I recommend using the Chrome Browser, if you don't speak the language it offers a good level of translation.
Most popular search engine in China.
Second most popular search engine in China.
National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System
Official Chinese Government site, covering criminal, civil, adminstration, compensation and enforcement cases (NOTE - requires creation of an account).
This is a commercial site and will require you to pay for documentation, however, there is some useful information here about what may be available.
China Securities Index Network
(Juchao Information Network) the statutory information disclosure platform of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, useful for searching for company information.
IMPORTANT: Links to other websites are made available for convenience of investigators and researchers. They do not constitute endorsement of material at those sites, or any associated organisation, product or service. As with all links, please exercise caution. Care should always be exercised. We will not be held liable or responsible if they later prove to be malicious.
UK Companies House with access to documents for free!
The European Business Register is a network of National Business Registers and Information Providers from currently 25 European countries.
This portal allows you to search for and access company information from the national business registers across the EU.
UK Land registry (small fee for documents)
European Land Registry
Free Company and/or Director research with subscription option (UK)
Worldwide Company research tool, over 167 million companies to search from
Good source for Director information
Worldwide Company research tool
Good company resource, 40 million companies available for searching
AiHitdata is a unique source of company information. It stores and continually updates huge amounts of company data. Much of this data is unique, it will not be found in any other database available on the Internet.
Insight on companies including reviews
IMPORTANT: Links to other websites are made available for convenience of investigators and researchers. They do not constitute endorsement of material at those sites, or any associated organisation, product or service. As with all links, please exercise caution. Care should always be exercised. We will not be held liable or responsible if they later prove to be malicious.
Fantastic domain/IP search tool and much more. You will get 20 days free by entering the voucher code INTELECTTRIAL. After that there is a small charge, but you get historical domain searches, excellent for looking at previous owners, hosts and much more!
IP Address tools
IP Address tools
DNS Information
Check what your browser leaks about you
Great tool for IP/Domain research
Check your IP address and more info about you
Quick IP address information
Investigate domains and IP addresses. Get registrant information, DNS records, and more.
IMPORTANT: Links to other websites are made available for convenience of investigators and researchers. They do not constitute endorsement of material at those sites, or any associated organisation, product or service. As with all links, please exercise caution. Care should always be exercised. We will not be held liable or responsible if they later prove to be malicious.
A web capture tool designed for online investigations – highly recommended.IMPORTANT: Links to other websites are made available for convenience of investigators and researchers. They do not constitute endorsement of material at those sites, or any associated organisation, product or service. As with all links, please exercise caution. Care should always be exercised. We will not be held liable or responsible if they later prove to be malicious.
UK resource on online safety both business and personal
This site is packed full of resources on how to avoid a Data Breach, recommended to me by an up and coming Cyber Security professional (thank you Zoe)
Preventative advice from Norton
National Cyber Security Center
Expert, trusted, and independent guidance for UK industry, government departments, the critical national infrastructure and private SMEs.
Department of Industry, Innovation and Science
UK Government initiative
We put together some quick tips and best practices for you to create stronger passwords, protect your devices, avoid phishing attempts, and browse the Internet securely.
The FBI is the lead federal agency for investigating cyber attacks by criminals, overseas adversaries, and terrorists.
Anti-ransomware
Esupport Ransomware screen unlocker from Trend Micro
Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime handbook
Take a phishing quiz, see how well you do.
This Anti-Virus suite which is currently free gets a very good write up.
IMPORTANT: Links to other websites are made available for convenience of investigators and researchers. They do not constitute endorsement of material at those sites, or any associated organisation, product or service. As with all links, please exercise caution. Care should always be exercised. We will not be held liable or responsible if they later prove to be malicious.
Our favourite translation tool, recommend the download rather than the website.
Worldwide people search tool – WEF June 2019 moved to a subscription model.
Worldwide people search tool with ranking
UK and mostly paid for results but some info available to research in other tools
Username search tool, scans websites where users enter in an alias
Still testing this one but given the removal of Facebook Graph Search this offers a working alternative (for now).
IMPORTANT: Links to other websites are made available for convenience of investigators and researchers. They do not constitute endorsement of material at those sites, or any associated organisation, product or service. As with all links, please exercise caution. Care should always be exercised. We will not be held liable or responsible if they later prove to be malicious.
UK Financial Conduct Authority
We aim to make financial markets work well so that consumers get a fair deal, including protecting consumers, enhancing marker integrity and promoting competition.
The Law Pages is a legal resources site that provides a number of services and facilities for legal professionals, students as well as the general public.
The Supreme Court’s docket system contains information about cases, both pending and decided, that have been filed at the Court.
Bankruptcy and statutory notices
IMPORTANT: Links to other websites are made available for convenience of investigators and researchers. They do not constitute endorsement of material at those sites, or any associated organisation, product or service. As with all links, please exercise caution. Care should always be exercised. We will not be held liable or responsible if they later prove to be malicious.
Top 10 VPNs available for encrypted browsing
Proxify is an anonymous proxy service which allows anyone to surf the Web privately and securely.
A free proxy list and proxy checker providing you with the best free proxy servers.
VPN protocols, split tunneling and zero knowledge required.
Multi-platform apps designed to be user-friendly with 1 click
IMPORTANT: Links to other websites are made available for convenience of investigators and researchers. They do not constitute endorsement of material at those sites, or any associated organisation, product or service. As with all links, please exercise caution. Care should always be exercised. We will not be held liable or responsible if they later prove to be malicious.
Excellent social media monitoring tool, no longer free version.
Trawls many platforms and reports trends
Allows you to tailor search results to specific date ranges, people and more.
Designed to help you manage your own social media presenc
IMPORTANT: Links to other websites are made available for convenience of investigators and researchers. They do not constitute endorsement of material at those sites, or any associated organisation, product or service. As with all links, please exercise caution. Care should always be exercised. We will not be held liable or responsible if they later prove to be malicious.
Online Security
Online Security
Blocks YouTube, Facebook and ads everywhere else on the web.
Disconnect lets you visualize and block the invisible websites that track you.
Encrypts your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure.
A lightweight screen recorder and casting extension
FireShot takes full web page screenshots. You can edit and annotate captures.
Deletes typed URLs, Cache, Cookies, your Download and Browsing History instantly
Integrates with Chrome and a must for professional investigators. Screen captures and much, much more! Currently around £80 GBP and well worth it.
A Firefox extension which helps you remove your internet history and enhance your security and privacy within seconds.
Displays a country flag depicting the location of the current website’s server and provides a multitude of tools such as site safety checks, whois, translation, similar sites, validation, URL shortening, and more.
IMPORTANT: Links to other websites are made available for convenience of investigators and researchers. They do not constitute endorsement of material at those sites, or any associated organisation, product or service. As with all links, please exercise caution. Care should always be exercised. We will not be held liable or responsible if they later prove to be malicious.