Wazuh: When You Need to Know What’s Happening on Every Machine
Wazuh isn’t just another SIEM. It’s not a shiny dashboard glued to a log collector. It’s a security platform that goes deep into endpoints — files, processes, configs — and tells you when something drifts out of line. Then it correlates that with known rules, compliance policies, or threat intel, and lets you act.
Think of it like OSSEC on serious steroids. Same agent-based model, but layered with file integrity monitoring, rootkit detection, vulnerability insights, and integration with Elastic or Splunk if needed. It doesn’t try to be simple — but it’s thorough.
What It Watches and Why That Matters
| Feature | What It’s Doing Behind the Scenes |
| Agent-based monitoring | Pulls logs, system calls, file events, and registry changes from hosts |
| Real-time log analysis | Looks at syslog, Windows event logs, cloud audit trails, and more |
| FIM + Rootkit + VirusTotal | Detects file tampering, shady processes, and hashes matched to malware feeds |
| Compliance checks | Runs security baselines (PCI, CIS, GDPR, NIST, etc.) out of the box |
| Alert correlation | Combines data across logs + events to reduce false positives |
| Centralized dashboard | Kibana interface (or API) shows agents, alerts, rules, and system health |
| Integrations | Works with Elastic, Splunk, VirusTotal, AlienVault OTX, Slack, PagerDuty |
| Active response | Can run scripts to block IPs, disable users, kill processes |
What It Needs (and Doesn’t)
Wazuh isn’t featherweight, but it runs well if deployed with purpose. It’s flexible — you can run it on a single VM, or scale it out across nodes.
– Agents: Linux, Windows, macOS, BSD, Docker containers, Kubernetes nodes
– Manager/Server: Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS)
– Storage: Typically Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch + Filebeat + Kibana)
– Web UI: Integrated into Kibana or custom dashboards via API
– Network: Agents talk to manager via encrypted channels (default port 1514/1515)
– Size: Minimum 2 CPUs / 4GB RAM for small setups; more for real-time log ingest at scale
Setup Overview (Minimal All-in-One Install)
- Get the installation script:
curl -sO https://packages.wazuh.com/4.7/wazuh-install.sh
chmod +x wazuh-install.sh
- Run it (installs manager, dashboard, and Elastic stack):
sudo ./wazuh-install.sh -a
- After install, access the dashboard:
https://<your_ip_or_hostname>
Default credentials: admin / admin
- Add an agent:
/var/ossec/bin/manage_agents
- Deploy the agent key on the host and start the agent. Logs should appear shortly.
Where It’s Actually Used
– Internal corporate networks that need real compliance tracking (PCI, HIPAA, etc.)
– SOC teams doing log correlation across hundreds of hosts
– DevOps engineers watching containers and cloud workloads in near real time
– Companies that outgrew OSSEC but want something open-source and extendable
– Environments where custom active responses are needed — not just alerts
What Works Well (and What Trips You Up)
Things people like:
– FIM is clean and fast
– Built-in compliance templates save time
– Agent deployment is straightforward
– Works well with existing Elastic stacks
– Active response is scriptable — block that IP, shut down that rogue process, etc.
Expect some complexity:
– The Elastic backend needs tuning at scale
– The web UI assumes Kibana — take it or leave it
– Alert noise needs rule tuning, especially at the start
– Not beginner-friendly — but that’s kind of the point
– Upgrades are manageable, but sometimes a bit manual
Final Thought
Wazuh is what you deploy when the question isn’t “what happened?” but “how did it get past us?” It’s heavy, yes. It takes effort to tune. But once it’s up, it lets you see inside your infrastructure — and do something about it — without buying into a boxed solution you can’t control.
