Suricata is an open-source threat detection system that functions as an intrusion detection system (IDS), intrusion prevention system (IPS), or network security monitoring tool, initially released by the Open Information Security Foundation in 2010. It can be set up in various configurations, such as a host-based or network-wide IDS, and comes with built-in security rules that can be expanded with external rule sets to generate log data for analysis. Integrating Suricata with the ELK Stack and Logz.io enhances the ability to ingest, store, and analyze security events by shipping Suricata data into a centralized logging system using tools like Filebeat and Logstash. This setup allows for the creation of visualizations in Kibana to monitor network activity, such as alert categories and traffic distribution, facilitating comprehensive network security monitoring. The article emphasizes that Suricata should be part of a broader, multi-layered security strategy, integrating with other security measures like firewalls and endpoint monitoring, and highlights the benefits of using Logz.io for enhanced aggregation and analytics capabilities.