Awesome Threat Detection and Hunting

A curated list of awesome threat detection and hunting resources
Contents
- MITRE ATT&CK Navigator (source code) - The ATT&CK Navigator is designed to provide basic navigation and annotation of ATT&CK matrices, something that people are already doing today in tools like Excel.
- HELK - A Hunting ELK (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) with advanced analytic capabilities.
- DetectionLab - Vagrant & Packer scripts to build a lab environment complete with security tooling and logging best practices.
- Revoke-Obfuscation - PowerShell Obfuscation Detection Framework.
- Invoke-ATTACKAPI - A PowerShell script to interact with the MITRE ATT&CK Framework via its own API.
- Unfetter - A reference implementation provides a framework for collecting events (process creation, network connections, Window Event Logs, etc.) from a client machine and performing CAR analytics to detect potential adversary activity.
- Flare - An analytical framework for network traffic and behavioral analytics.
- RedHunt-OS - A Virtual Machine for Adversary Emulation and Threat Hunting. RedHunt aims to be a one stop shop for all your threat emulation and threat hunting needs by integrating attacker’s arsenal as well as defender’s toolkit to actively identify the threats in your environment.
- Oriana - Lateral movement and threat hunting tool for Windows environments built on Django comes Docker ready.
- Bro-Osquery - Bro integration with osquery
- Brosquery - A module for osquery to load Bro logs into tables
- DeepBlueCLI - A PowerShell Module for Hunt Teaming via Windows Event Logs
- Uncoder - An online translator for SIEM saved searches, filters, queries, API requests, correlation and Sigma rules
- CimSweep - A suite of CIM/WMI-based tools that enable the ability to perform incident response and hunting operations remotely across all versions of Windows
- Dispatch - An open-source crisis management orchestration framework
- EQL - Event Query Language
- EQLLib - The Event Query Language Analytics Library (eqllib) is a library of event based analytics, written in EQL to detect adversary behaviors identified in MITRE ATT&CK™.
- BZAR (Bro/Zeek ATT&CK-based Analytics and Reporting) - A set of Zeek scripts to detect ATT&CK techniques
- Security Onion - An open-source Linux distribution for threat hunting, security monitoring, and log management. It includes ELK, Snort, Suricata, Zeek, Wazuh, Sguil, and many other security tools
- Varna - A quick & cheap AWS CloudTrail Monitoring with Event Query Language (EQL)
- BinaryAlert - Serverless, real-time & retroactive malware detection
- hollows_hunter - Scans all running processes, recognizes and dumps a variety of potentially malicious implants (replaced/implanted PEs, shellcodes, hooks, in-memory patches).
- ThreatHunting - A Splunk app mapped to MITRE ATT&CK to guide your threat hunts
- Sentinel Attack - A repository of Azure Sentinel alerts and hunting queries leveraging sysmon and the MITRE ATT&CK framework
- Brim - A desktop application to efficiently search large packet captures and Zeek logs
- YARA - The pattern matching swiss knife
- Intel Owl - An Open Source Intelligence, or OSINT solution to get threat intelligence data about a specific file, an IP or a domain from a single API at scale.
- Capa - An open-source tool to identify capabilities in executable files.
- Splunk Security Content Splunk-curated detection content that can easily be used accross many SIEMs (see Uncoder Rule Converter.)
- Threat Bus - Threat intelligence dissemination layer to connect security tools through a distributed publish/subscribe message broker.
- VAST - A network telemetry engine for data-driven security investigations.
- zeek2es - An open source tool to convert Zeek logs to Elastic/OpenSearch. You can also output pure JSON from Zeek’s TSV logs!
- LogSlash: A standard for reducing log volume without sacrificing analytical capability.
- SOC-Multitool: A powerful and user-friendly browser extension that streamlines investigations for security professionals.
- Zeek Analysis Tools (ZAT): Processing and analysis of Zeek network data with Pandas, scikit-learn, Kafka and Spark.
- ProcMon for Linux
- Synthetic Adversarial Log Objects (SALO) - A framework for the generation of log events without the need for infrastructure or actions to initiate the event that causes a log event.
Check out the Detection and Response Pipeline repository for more resources. The repo contains a compilation of suggested tools/services for each component in a detection and response pipeline, along with real-world examples. The purpose is to create a reference hub for designing effective threat detection and response pipelines.
- ElastAlert - A framework for alerting on anomalies, spikes, or other patterns of interest from data in Elasticsearch
- StreamAlert - A serverless, realtime data analysis framework which empowers you to ingest, analyze, and alert on data from any environment, using datasources and alerting logic you define
- Matano: An open source security lake platform (SIEM alternative) for threat hunting, detection and response on AWS. Matano lets you write advanced detections as code (using python) to correlate and alert on threats in realtime.
- Shuffle: A general purpose security automation platform.
- Sublime: An open platform for detection, response, and threat hunting in email environments. Sublime lets you write advanced detections as code to alert and remediate threats like phishing in real-time.
- Substation - A cloud native data pipeline and transformation toolkit for security teams.
Endpoint Monitoring
- osquery (github) - SQL powered operating system instrumentation, monitoring, and analytics
- Kolide Fleet - A flexible control server for osquery fleets
- Zeek Agent - An endpoint monitoring agent that provides host activity to Zeek
- Velociraptor - Endpoint visibility and collection tool
- Sysdig - A tool for deep Linux system visibility, with native support for containers. Think about sysdig as strace + tcpdump + htop + iftop + lsof + …awesome sauce
- go-audit - An alternative to the Linux auditd daemon
- Sysmon - A Windows system service and device driver that monitors and logs system activity to the Windows event log
- Sysmon for Linux
- OSSEC - An open-source Host-based Intrusion Detection System (HIDS)
- WAZUH - An open-source security platform
Configuration
- sysmon-DFIR - Sources, configuration and how to detect evil things utilizing Microsoft Sysmon.
- sysmon-config - Sysmon configuration file template with default high-quality event tracing.
- sysmon-modular - A repository of sysmon configuration modules. It also includes a mapping of Sysmon configurations to MITRE ATT&CK techniques.
- auditd configuration
- osquery-configuration - A repository for using osquery for incident detection and response.
Network Monitoring
- Zeek (formerly Bro) - A network security monitoring tool
- ntopng - A web-based network traffic monitoring tool
- Suricata - A network threat detection engine
- Snort (github) - A network intrusion detection tool
- Joy - A package for capturing and analyzing network flow data and intraflow data, for network research, forensics, and security monitoring
- Netcap - A framework for secure and scalable network traffic analysis
- Moloch - A large scale and open source full packet capture and search tool
- Stenographer - A full-packet-capture tool
- JA3 - A method for profiling SSL/TLS Clients and Servers
- HASSH - Profiling Method for SSH Clients and Servers
- RDFP - Zeek Remote desktop fingerprinting script based on FATT (Fingerprint All The Things)
- FATT - A pyshark based script for extracting network metadata and fingerprints from pcap files and live network traffic
- FingerprinTLS - A TLS fingerprinting method
- Mercury - Network fingerprinting and packet metadata capture
- GQUIC Protocol Analyzer for Zeek
- Recog - A framework for identifying products, services, operating systems, and hardware by matching fingerprints against data returned from various network probes
- Hfinger - Fingerprinting HTTP requests
- JARM - An active Transport Layer Security (TLS) server fingerprinting tool.
Email Monitoring
Detection Rules
Dataset
Resources
- Huntpedia - Your Threat Hunting Knowledge Compendium
- Hunt Evil - Your Practical Guide to Threat Hunting
- The Hunter’s Handbook - Endgame’s guide to adversary hunting
- ThreatHunter-Playbook - A Threat hunter’s playbook to aid the development of techniques and hypothesis for hunting campaigns.
- The ThreatHunting Project - A great collection of hunts and threat hunting resources.
- CyberThreatHunting - A collection of resources for threat hunters.
- Hunt-Detect-Prevent - Lists of sources and utilities to hunt, detect and prevent evildoers.
- Alerting and Detection Strategy Framework
- Generating Hypotheses for Successful Threat Hunting
- Expert Investigation Guide - Threat Hunting
- Active Directory Threat Hunting
- Threat Hunting for Fileless Malware
- Windows Commands Abused by Attackers
- Deception-as-Detection - Deception based detection techniques mapped to the MITRE’s ATT&CK framework.
- On TTPs
- Hunting On The Cheap (Slides)
- Threat Hunting Techniques - AV, Proxy, DNS and HTTP Logs
- Detecting Malware Beacons Using Splunk
- Data Science Hunting Funnel
- Use Python & Pandas to Create a D3 Force Directed Network Diagram
- Syscall Auditing at Scale
- Catching attackers with go-audit and a logging pipeline
- The Coventry Conundrum of Threat Intelligence
- Signal the ATT&CK: Part 1 - Building a real-time threat detection capability with Tanium that focuses on documented adversarial techniques.
- SANS Summit Archives (DFIR, Cyber Defense) - Threat hunting, Blue Team and DFIR summit slides
- Bro-Osquery - Large-Scale Host and Network Monitoring Using Open-Source Software
- Malware Persistence - Collection of various information focused on malware persistence: detection (techniques), response, pitfalls and the log collection (tools).
- Threat Hunting with Jupyter Notebooks
- How Dropbox Security builds tools for threat detection and incident response
- Introducing Event Query Language
- The No Hassle Guide to Event Query Language (EQL) for Threat Hunting (PDF)
- Introducing the Funnel of Fidelity (PDF)
- Detection Spectrum (PDF)
- Capability Abstraction (PDF)
- Awesome YARA - A curated list of awesome YARA rules, tools, and resources
- Defining ATT&CK Data Sources - A two-part blog series that outlines a new methodology to extend ATT&CK’s current data sources.
- DETT&CT: MAPPING YOUR BLUE TEAM TO MITRE ATT&CK™ - A blog that describes how to align MITRE ATT&CK-based detection content with data sources.
- Detection as Code in Splunk Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 - A multipart series describing how detection as code can be successfully deployed in a Splunk environment.
- Lessons Learned in Detection Engineering - A well experienced detection engineer describes in detail his observations, challenges, and recommendations for building an effective threat detection program.
- A Research-Driven process applied to Threat Detection Engineering Inputs.
- Investigation Scenario tweets by Chris Sanders
- Oh My Malware - A video series focused on malware execution and investigations using Elastic Security.
Frameworks
- MITRE ATT&CK - A curated knowledge base and model for cyber adversary behavior, reflecting the various phases of an adversary’s lifecycle and the platforms they are known to target.
- Alerting and Detection Strategies Framework - A framework for developing alerting and detection strategies.
- A Simple Hunting Maturity Model - The Hunting Maturity Model describes five levels of organizational hunting capability, ranging from HMM0 (the least capability) to HMM4 (the most).
- The Pyramic of Pain - The relationship between the types of indicators you might use to detect an adversary’s activities and how much pain it will cause them when you are able to deny those indicators to them.
- A Framework for Cyber Threat Hunting
- The PARIS Model - A model for threat hunting.
- Cyber Kill Chain - It is part of the Intelligence Driven Defense® model for identification and prevention of cyber intrusions activity. The model identifies what the adversaries must complete in order to achieve their objective.
- The DML Model - The Detection Maturity Level (DML) model is a capability maturity model for referencing ones maturity in detecting cyber attacks.
- NIST Cybersecurity Framework
- OSSEM (Open Source Security Events Metadata) - A community-led project that focuses on the documentation and standardization of security event logs from diverse data sources and operating systems.
- Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework (OCSF) - A framework for creating schemas and it also delivers a cybersecurity event schema built with the framework (schema browser).
- MITRE Engage - A framework for planning and discussing adversary engagement operations that empowers you to engage your adversaries and achieve your cybersecurity goals.
- MaGMa Use Case Defintion Model - A business-centric approach for planning and defining threat detection use cases.
Windows
Sysmon
PowerShell
MacOS
Osquery
DNS
Fingerprinting
Data Science
Research Papers
Blogs
Podcasts
Newsletters
Videos
Trainings
- Applied Network Defense courses by Chris Sanders
- Investigation theory, Practical threat hunting, Detection engineering with Sigma, etc.
- Security Blue Team (BTL1 and BTL2 certificates)
- LetsDefend - Hands-On SOC Analyst Training
- TryHackMe - Hands-on cyber security training through real-world scenarios.
- 13Cubed, Investigating Windows Endpoints by Richard Davis
- HackTheBox - While not directly related to threat detection, the website features training modules on general security and offensive topics that can be beneficial for junior SOC analysts.
Labs
- DetectionLab - Vagrant & Packer scripts to build a lab environment complete with security tooling and logging best practices.
- Splunk Boss of the SOC - Hands-on workshops and challenges to practice threat hunting using the BOTS and other datasets.
- HELK - A Hunting ELK (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) with advanced analytic capabilities.
- BlueTeam Lab - A detection lab created with Terraform and Ansible in Azure.
- attack_range - A tool that allows you to create vulnerable instrumented local or cloud environments to simulate attacks against and collect the data into Splunk.
- MITRE CALDERA - An automated adversary emulation system that performs post-compromise adversarial behavior within Windows Enterprise networks.
- APTSimulator - A Windows Batch script that uses a set of tools and output files to make a system look as if it was compromised.
- Atomic Red Team - Small and highly portable detection tests mapped to the Mitre ATT&CK Framework.
- Network Flight Simulator - flightsim is a lightweight utility used to generate malicious network traffic and help security teams to evaluate security controls and network visibility.
- Metta - A security preparedness tool to do adversarial simulation.
- Red Team Automation (RTA) - RTA provides a framework of scripts designed to allow blue teams to test their detection capabilities against malicious tradecraft, modeled after MITRE ATT&CK.
- SharpShooter - Payload Generation Framework.
- CACTUSTORCH - Payload Generation for Adversary Simulations.
- DumpsterFire - A modular, menu-driven, cross-platform tool for building repeatable, time-delayed, distributed security events.
- Empire(website) - A PowerShell and Python post-exploitation agent.
- PowerSploit - A PowerShell Post-Exploitation Framework.
- RedHunt-OS - A Virtual Machine for Adversary Emulation and Threat Hunting. RedHunt aims to be a one stop shop for all your threat emulation and threat hunting needs by integrating attacker’s arsenal as well as defender’s toolkit to actively identify the threats in your environment.
- Infection Monkey - An open source Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) tool that assesses the resiliency of private and public cloud environments to post-breach attacks and lateral movement.
- Splunk Attack Range - A tool that allows you to create vulnerable instrumented local or cloud environments to simulate attacks against and collect the data into Splunk.
Threat Simulation Resources
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License

To the extent possible under law, Adel "0x4D31" Karimi has waived all copyright and
related or neighboring rights to this work.