{"id":11855,"date":"2022-07-30T08:53:21","date_gmt":"2022-07-30T05:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kifarunix.com\/?p=11855"},"modified":"2024-03-09T16:16:02","modified_gmt":"2024-03-09T13:16:02","slug":"monitor-changes-to-critical-files-on-windows-systems-using-wazuh-and-elk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kifarunix.com\/monitor-changes-to-critical-files-on-windows-systems-using-wazuh-and-elk\/","title":{"rendered":"Monitor Changes to Critical Files on Windows Systems using Wazuh and ELK"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In this tutorial, you will learn how to monitor changes to critical files on Windows systems using Wazuh and ELK Stack. <\/em>File operations are logged when a file is created, updated, overwritten or deleted. Such file changes events are useful for monitoring files under the directories such as the startup folders, download, temporary directories or any other custom directory.<\/em> File\/Folder activities are part of the file integrity monitoring (FIM) and registry change monitoring<\/a><\/em>. Thus, to detect changes to these critical files, file integrity monitoring against the folder where these critical files resides needs to be enabled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monitor Changes to Critical Files on Windows Systems using Wazuh and ELK<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In order to monitor changes to critical files on Windows systems, you need to collect the events associated with the changes made and push them to Wazuh Manager for visualization on Kibana Wazuh app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Install and Integrate Wazuh Manager with ELK Stack<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Thus before you begin, ensure that you have ELK Stack integrated with Wazuh manager and is up and running. See example tutorials below;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Integrate Wazuh Manager with ELK Stack<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Install Wazuh Server on Rocky Linux 8<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NOTE: We are running ELK 7.17.0 and Wazuh Manager 4.3.6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kibana (ELK) version;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

cat \/usr\/share\/kibana\/package.json | grep version<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n

Sample output;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  \"version\": \"7.17.0\",<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n

Wazuh Manager version;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\/var\/ossec\/bin\/wazuh-control info | grep WAZUH_VERSION<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n

Sample output;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WAZUH_VERSION=\"v4.3.6\"<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n

Install Wazuh Agents on Windows Systems<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In this example setup, I will be using Windows 10 system for demonstration purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To install Wazuh agent on Windows 10 and automatically add it to Wazuh manager, then;<\/p>\n\n\n\n