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Wazuh

An open-source is a security platform unified extended detection and response (XDR) and security information and event management (SIEM) capabilities. Its reputation is built on threat detection, integrity monitoring, incident response, and compliance features, making it a good choice for businesses from small enterprises to large corporations.

It is designed to protect workloads across diverse environments, including on-premises, virtualized, containerized, and cloud-based infrastructures. This flexibility is important in hybrid IT ecosystems, where assets and data are distributed across multiple platforms and require consistent security monitoring. Wazuh achieves this by deploying lightweight agents on monitored endpoints, which collect and forward security data to a centralized Wazuh server for analysis and alerting.

The architecture is modular, consisting primarily of three central components: the Wazuh Manager, the Wazuh Indexer, and the Wazuh Dashboard. The Wazuh Manager is the brain of the system, responsible for analyzing incoming data, applying detection rules, and generating alerts. It processes logs from various sources, normalizes them through decoders, and applies rules to detect threats or policy violations. Alerts can be forwarded via syslog, email, or integrated external APIs, allowing for integration with existing security workflows. The Wazuh Indexer, based on OpenSearch, stores and indexes security events, making them searchable and enabling analytics. The Wazuh Dashboard provides an interface for visualizing security data, managing alerts, and configuring the platform.

Open Source

The platform is freely available, with its source code accessible on GitHub reflecting a strong and engaged developer base. This open development model ensures transparency, fosters innovation, and allows users to contribute to the project, report issues, and suggest enhancements. The open-source license also means that organizations can deploy Wazuh without incurring licensing costs, making it an attractive option for budget-conscious teams or those who want to avoid vendor lock-in.

Installation and Configuration

Installing and configuring Wazuh is a straightforward process, supported by documentation and automated installation scripts. The platform can be deployed in a variety of configurations, from single-server setups suitable for small environments to distributed architectures capable of handling high event volumes and large numbers of agents. For example, to manage up to 1,000 agents with a single Wazuh server, it is recommended to allocate at least 32 CPU cores and 64 GB of RAM, although the actual requirements will depend on the volume of events per second (EPS) and the complexity of the monitored environment. Wazuh is designed to scale horizontally, meaning that adding more servers to distribute the load is generally more effective than increasing the resources of a single server.

Data Collection and Log Management

The data collection capabilities of Wazuh are extensive. Agents can read log files, ingest data via network sockets (such as Syslog), capture the output of shell commands, or pull data from APIs of popular cloud and container platforms like AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, Office 365, and Docker. Once collected, data is processed and stored in two primary log files: the archives log, which contains all normalized logs including raw data, and the alerts log, which records only those events that have triggered detection rules. These logs are automatically rotated, compressed, and stored, ensuring efficient use of disk space and facilitating long-term retention strategies.

Integration and Extensibility

The platform can ship alerts in real-time to the Wazuh Indexer using Filebeat, and it supports integration with other log management and SIEM tools such as Graylog and Splunk. This interoperability helps organizations to leverage Wazuh alongside existing security solutions, building their overall visibility and response capabilities.

Wazuh also offers a RESTful API, which is open-source and allows users to interact programmatically with the Wazuh Manager. This API facilitates automation, integration with third-party tools, and custom workflows, further extending the platform’s flexibility and adaptability to different organizational needs.

The Wazuh Community

Thousands of organizations and individual contributors participating in its development and support ecosystem. Community members engage through various channels, including dedicated forums, mailing lists, a subreddit, social media platforms, and an active GitHub repository. The community not only provides peer support and knowledge sharing but also contributes code, documentation, and plugins, helping that the platform remains up-to-date with the latest security trends and technologies. The availability of video tutorials, webinars, and walkthroughs on YouTube further helps the learning experience for new and experienced users alike.

Performance and Scalability

From a performance perspective, Wazuh is capable of handling substantial data volumes, provided that the underlying infrastructure is appropriately sized and configured. For organizations with high ingestion rates, such as 90 GB per day, a distributed environment with multiple indexers and careful management of shards and replication is recommended to ensure efficient storage and retrieval of security events. The platform’s design allows for flexible log archival and retention strategies, enabling users to balance storage costs with compliance and operational requirements.

Cloud and SaaS Options

In addition to its on-premises deployment options, Wazuh offers a cloud-based SaaS solution, providing organizations with a managed environment that delivers the same features without the overhead of maintaining infrastructure. This flexibility allows users to choose the deployment model that best suits their operational and compliance needs.

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