Sysmon Security Event Processing in Real Time with KSQL and HELK

During a presentation titled "Hunters ATT&CKing with the Right Data" at ATT&CKcon, the importance of modeling security event logs for threat hunting was emphasized, particularly through the use of HELK, a free threat-hunting platform leveraging the Elastic stack, Apache Kafka, and Apache Spark. The discussion highlighted how KSQL, a SQL-like query language for Kafka Streams, can facilitate real-time security detection by joining Windows Sysmon event logs to detect suspicious activities such as lateral movement techniques. By streaming and processing these events in real-time, KSQL enables the creation of enriched data streams, offering a more efficient alternative to traditional security information and event management (SIEM) systems that often rely on query-time processing. The blog post further explores the benefits of using KSQL for joining data streams and underscores the potential for real-time analysis and alerting, which is crucial for effective cybersecurity operations.