Back from Bro Workshop

Last week I attended the Bro Hands-On Workshop 2009. Bro is an open source network intrusion detection and traffic characterization program with a lineage stretching to the mid-1990s. I finally met Vern Paxson in person, which was great. I've known who Vern was for about 10 years but never met him or heard him speak.

I first covered Bro in The Tao of Network Security Monitoring in 2004 with help from Chris Manders. About two years ago I posted Bro Basics and Bro Basics Follow-Up here. I haven't used Bro in production but after learning more about it in the workshop I would be comfortable using some of Bro's default features.

I'm not going to say anything right now about using Bro. I did integrate Bro analysis into most of the cases in my all-new TCP/IP Weapons School 2.0 class at Black Hat this year. If TechTarget clears me for writing again in 2009 I will probably write some Bro articles for Traffic Talk.


Richard Bejtlich is teaching new classes in Europe in 2009. Register by 1 Mar for the best rates.

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