Introduction
IntelMQ is a solution for IT security teams (CERTs & CSIRTs, SOCs abuse departments, etc.) for collecting and processing security feeds (such as log files) using a message queuing protocol. It's a community driven initiative called IHAP[^1] (Incident Handling Automation Project) which was conceptually designed by European CERTs/CSIRTs during several InfoSec events. Its main goal is to give to incident responders an easy way to collect & process threat intelligence thus improving the incident handling processes of CERTs.
IntelMQ is frequently used for:
- automated incident handling
- situational awareness
- automated notifications
- as data collector for other tools
- and more!
The design was influenced by AbuseHelper however it was re-written from scratch and aims at:
- Reducing the complexity of system administration
- Reducing the complexity of writing new bots for new data feeds
- Reducing the probability of events lost in all process with persistence functionality (even system crash)
- Use and improve the existing Data Harmonization Ontology
- Use JSON format for all messages
- Provide easy way to store data into databases and log collectors such as PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch and Splunk
- Provide easy way to create your own black-lists
- Provide easy communication with other systems via HTTP RESTful API
It follows the following basic meta-guidelines:
- Don't break simplicity - KISS
- Keep it open source - forever
- Strive for perfection while keeping a deadline
- Reduce complexity/avoid feature bloat
- Embrace unit testing
- Code readability: test with inexperienced programmers
- Communicate clearly
Contribute
- Subscribe to the IntelMQ Developers mailing list and engage in discussions
- Report any errors and suggest improvements via issues
- Read the Developer Guide and open a pull request
[^1]: Incident Handling Automation Project, mailing list: ihap@lists.trusted-introducer.org
