OSQuery VS fwknop

Perhaps the OP means OsQuery: https://github.com/osquery/osquery

OsQuery is an SQLite extension consisting of hundreds of virtual tables

There's at least one open data quality issue for `process_open_sockets` on macOS[1]. It's a few years old however and, if you aren't seeing that casting error, you probably aren't hitting it. But that's a good example of the kind of debt that's been built up over time.

(In terms of general purpose/flexible tooling, I'm not aware of a close replacement for osquery.)

[1]: https://github.com/osquery/osquery/issues/6319

The largest we have successfully deployed is on the OSQuery schema https://osquery.io/ which is 277 tables and lots of business context (malwares, vulnerabilities, Windows registry keys, etc).

From a self hosted standpoint OSQuery or Wazuh are your best bets for monitoring USB devices. Windows makes blocking really challenging and I’m not aware of any “free” solutions that attempt it.

Configure auditd to monitor host activity: https://izyknows.medium.com/linux-auditd-for-threat-detection-d06c8b941505 or osquery: https://osquery.io/ (or similar software: filebeat for example).

OS Query : Easily ask questions about your Linux, Windows, and macOS infrastructure

Osquery + Fleet. https://osquery.io/ https://fleetdm.com/, using the two allows you to build a query to answer what ever questions you (or an auditor) might have about your environment.

sounds fun; i see the arch aur has a few options as well. have you tried https://www.cipherdyne.org/fwknop/ ?

Yes that's the basic idea, i tried to use fwknop first but it didn't do what i wanted it to do so i made my own

Port knocking. Or better yet FWKNOP. I'm disappointed I don't hear people talk about it more. The port isn't even open until you give the secret combination of knocks on a large number of ports. There's much more to it. I recommend listening to Episode 865 ofSecurity Now.

> Is this approach used elsewhere?

Yes, or at least in a similar fashion. An alternative variant of port knocking is SPA (Single Packet Authorization). Often SPA protocols use UDP and contain within the body field an encrypted payload containing all the required data to authenticate and authorize a particular request.

There are multiple different implementations of SPA: OpenSPA [1] (full disclosure: I am the author of OpenSPA), fwknop [2] just to name a few.

SDP (Software Defined Perimeter) often builds upon SPA technologies in order to achieve a form of zero trust access.

[1] - https://github.com/greenstatic/openspa

[2] - https://github.com/mrash/fwknop

I am currently re-writting the OpenSPA protocol (version 2) and I plan on playing around with eBPF as well, so thanks eeriedusk for paving the way :)

As an alternative to port knocking, there is: https://github.com/mrash/fwknop

fwknop is nice and simple

Sure, few links for when you dig in: http://iplists.firehol.org/, https://crowdsec.net/, https://www.zeroflux.org/projects/knock/, https://www.cipherdyne.org/fwknop/

An upgrade to port knocking is Single Packet Authorization [1]. It doesn’t suffer from the observability, and other, problems of port knocking.

[1] https://www.cipherdyne.org/fwknop/

Or keep the port closed like I do with my ssh port and use fwknop to open the port only when needed.