IBM Gifts Threat Hunting Tool to Open Cybersecurity Alliance

IBM Corp. on Wednesday announced that it is contributing the Kestrel open-source programming language for threat hunting to the Open Cybersecurity Alliance (OCA).

The Kestrel threat hunting tool helps Security Operations Center (SOC) analysts and other cybersecurity professionals streamline threat discovery.

Through threat hunting, cybersecurity professionals can find hidden threats before they perform an attack, accelerating response to indicators of compromise. Kestrel aims to help analysis find threats more effectively through

Kestrel aims “to enable threat hunters to express hunts in an open, composable threat hunting language. Kestrel leverages automation to execute tedious hunting tasks, allowing threat hunters to focus on higher priority tasks,” IBM explains.

The tool leverages machine-based automation and allows for best practices to be reused in reducing times between hunts. Available in open-source, the project can be used by threat hunters worldwide to collaborate and share knowledge.

[ Related: Microsoft Unveils SimuLand: Open Source Attack Techniques Simulator ]

With this contribution, OCA will be able to continue to drive greater interoperability across the security industry by connecting the fragmented cybersecurity landscape and enabling security products to exchange data.

“Kestrel is designed to take advantage of the collective learned experience of the threat hunting community – and enable that to be combined with the power of machine learning and automation to speed response to threats,” said Jason Keirstead, CTO of Threat Management for IBM Security and Co-Chair – Open Cybersecurity Alliance.

 “By sharing new threat hunting patterns as they emerge via code that can be easily customized, Kestrel lets threat hunters devote more time to figuring out what to hunt, as opposed to how to hunt,” Keirstead added.

Related: Microsoft Unveils SimuLand: Open Source Attack Techniques Simulator

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