Chapter 24 — CyberWatch
Based on: SIH1677 — Real-time Cyber Threat Intelligence Platform
Organization: National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO)
Skills Required
- Cyber threat intelligence fundamentals
- Real-time data streaming and processing (Kafka, Flink)
- Data correlation and analytics
- SIEM system integration
- Python, Java/Scala for backend
- Web development for dashboards (React/Angular)
- Alerting systems and notification workflows
Project Description
CyberWatch is a real-time cyber threat intelligence platform designed to aggregate, correlate, and analyze cyber incident data from diverse sources. It provides continuous monitoring of threat feeds, detects emerging attack patterns, and generates actionable alerts for security operations centers (SOC). The platform features a comprehensive dashboard for situational awareness, supports API integrations with SIEM and incident response tools, and enables automated response workflows.
Tech Stack
- Apache Kafka for data streaming
- Apache Flink or Spark Streaming for real-time processing
- Elasticsearch for indexing and search
- Kibana or Grafana for visualization
- Python and/or Java/Scala for backend services
- RESTful APIs for integration with external systems
- Alerting via email, SMS, Slack, and webhook
Week-wise Plan
Week 1 — Planning and Data Source Integration
- Identify and catalog cyber intel sources (open feeds, commercial, internal sensors).
- Set up Kafka infrastructure and connectors for data ingestion.
- Develop parsers for various threat intelligence formats (STIX, TAXII, CSV).
- Deliverable: Data ingestion pipeline prototype.
Week 2 — Stream Processing and Normalization
- Implement Flink or Spark jobs to clean, normalize, and enrich incoming data.
- Develop metadata tagging and threat categorization modules.
- Deliverable: Data processing pipeline with enriched threat data output.
Week 3 — Correlation and Anomaly Detection
- Build correlation engines to link related events and detect campaigns.
- Develop anomaly detection models using machine learning.
- Deliverable: Correlation module with basic anomaly detection.
Week 4 — Alerting and Notification System
- Design alert thresholds and notification rules.
- Implement integrations with email, SMS, Slack, and webhook platforms.
- Deliverable: Alerting engine with multi-channel notifications.
Week 5 — Dashboard Development
- Develop UI components for live threat feed visualization, trend analysis, and incident tracking.
- Implement user controls for filtering and customizing views.
- Deliverable: Interactive real-time visualization dashboard.
Week 6 — API Development and External Integration
- Build RESTful APIs allowing external systems to query threat data and post incident updates.
- Integrate with SIEM and SOAR tools for automated workflows.
- Deliverable: API gateway and initial external connectors.
Week 7 — Scalability and Security
- Optimize streaming and backend services for high throughput and low latency.
- Implement access controls, authentication, and data encryption at rest and in transit.
- Deliverable: Scalable and secure platform ready for deployment.
Week 8 — Testing, Deployment, and Documentation
- Conduct end-to-end testing with live and synthetic threat feeds.
- Deploy on cloud or on-prem infrastructure with containerization and orchestration.
- Prepare comprehensive user and developer documentation.
- Deliverable: Fully operational CyberWatch platform with all documentation.
Testing and Deliverables
- Validate data accuracy and completeness using standard threat datasets.
- Test alert generation and notification delivery.
- Provide source code, deployment scripts, and demonstration videos.
CyberWatch enhances SOC capabilities by delivering continuous, intelligent threat insight enabling swift and informed incident response.