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Top 23 C Security Projects
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Project mention: Deploying a Simple Flask API Using Gunicorn, Supervisor & Nginx | dev.to | 2025-04-30
Nginx: A reverse proxy to handle client requests and route them to Gunicorn.
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InfluxDB
InfluxDB – Built for High-Performance Time Series Workloads. InfluxDB 3 OSS is now GA. Transform, enrich, and act on time series data directly in the database. Automate critical tasks and eliminate the need to move data externally. Download now.
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systeminformer
A free, powerful, multi-purpose tool that helps you monitor system resources, debug software and detect malware. Brought to you by Winsider Seminars & Solutions, Inc. @ http://www.windows-internals.com
For advanced end users? why would they ditch: https://systeminformer.sourceforge.io/ ?
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Tool Link: https://github.com/nmap/nmap
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Unicorn Engine
Unicorn CPU emulator framework (ARM, AArch64, M68K, Mips, Sparc, PowerPC, RiscV, S390x, TriCore, X86)
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capstone
Capstone disassembly/disassembler framework for ARM, ARM64 (ARMv8), Alpha, BPF, Ethereum VM, HPPA, LoongArch, M68K, M680X, Mips, MOS65XX, PPC, RISC-V(rv32G/rv64G), SH, Sparc, SystemZ, TMS320C64X, TriCore, Webassembly, XCore and X86.
It just updated to the nearly latest LLVM, so that argument is void: https://github.com/capstone-engine/capstone/blob/next/docs/c...
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SaaSHub
SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives
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Project mention: Transmits AM radio on computers without radio transmitting hardware (Airgap) | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-07-18
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AFLplusplus
The fuzzer afl++ is afl with community patches, qemu 5.1 upgrade, collision-free coverage, enhanced laf-intel & redqueen, AFLfast++ power schedules, MOpt mutators, unicorn_mode, and a lot more!
Project mention: Fuzzing between the lines in popular barcode software | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-10-31> Surprisingly, libFuzzer struggled to figure out that input should be of size 1024 and couldn’t start fuzzing.
Is this surprising? Does libFuzzer support Redqueen or laf-intel like AFL++ [0][1] which will pick up on any comparisons (like a comparison to size=1024) and fuzz with that?
0: https://github.com/AFLplusplus/AFLplusplus/blob/stable/instr...
1: https://github.com/AFLplusplus/AFLplusplus/blob/stable/instr...
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Suricata
Suricata is a network Intrusion Detection System, Intrusion Prevention System and Network Security Monitoring engine developed by the OISF and the Suricata community.
Project mention: What is a Denial of Service (DoS) Attack? A Comprehensive Guide | dev.to | 2025-04-28Suricata - High-performance Network IDS, IPS, and Network Security Monitoring engine.
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OSSEC
OSSEC is an Open Source Host-based Intrusion Detection System that performs log analysis, file integrity checking, policy monitoring, rootkit detection, real-time alerting and active response.
Project mention: The Impact of Open-Source Tools in Cyber Warfare: A Deep Dive | dev.to | 2025-03-06Open-source tools have led to a significant transformation in cyber warfare for two primary reasons: cost-effectiveness and community-driven innovation. Tools such as SQLmap and Aircrack-ng exemplify how attackers exploit vulnerabilities, making it easier for individuals with limited resources to engage in cyber exploits. Conversely, defensive tools like Snort and OSSEC empower security professionals to monitor networks and system logs, helping organizations detect and mitigate breaches in real time. The evolution does not stop at merely having access to these tools but extends to how continuously they are updated and improved. The community-driven nature of open-source software encourages ongoing enhancements and shared knowledge. This, however, is paired with increased risk. With any tool that is available to all, the challenge of distinguishing ethical use from malicious intent becomes prominent, placing a heavier burden on security professionals to adapt and be vigilant.
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Oh yeah, SSH signing is incredible. I've also migrated to it and didn't look back.
A couple of differences:
- it's possible to specify signing keys in a file inside the repository, and configure git to verify on merge (https://github.com/wiktor-k/ssh-signing/). I'm using that for my dot config repo to make sure I'm pulling only stuff I committed on my machines.
- SSH has TPM key support via PKCS11 or external agents, this makes it possible to easily roll out hardware backed keys
- SSH signatures have context separation, that is it's not possible to take your SSH commit signature and repurpose it (unlike OpenPGP)
- due to SSH keys being small the policy file is also small and readable, compare https://github.com/openssh/openssh-portable/blob/master/.git... with equivalent OpenPGP https://gitlab.com/sequoia-pgp/sequoia/-/blob/main/openpgp-p...
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Project mention: HyperDbg: A debugger designed for analyzing, fuzzing and reversing | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-11-15
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honggfuzz
Security oriented software fuzzer. Supports evolutionary, feedback-driven fuzzing based on code coverage (SW and HW based)
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unikraft
A next-generation cloud native kernel designed to unlock best-in-class performance, security primitives and efficiency savings.
Jochen Liedtke became a professor in 1999 in Karlsruhe, sadly he passed away only shortly after in 2001. I don't know if his successor Bellosa still does research on L4. There was the L4Ka project which appears to be completed. In the bachelor lecture on OS by him it's not part of the curriculum.
Rittinghaus, alumni of Bellosa, is involved with Unikraft [0], which was featured a couple of times on hn, and is using unikernel technology.
[0] https://unikraft.org/
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Project mention: QNX is now free for anything non-commercial, plus there's an RPi image | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-11-07
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tcpdump is a personal favorite for troubleshooting network issues because it lets you watch packets in real time. I ran it on both VMs while attempting the curl command again. On the Client side, I could see a SYN packet being sent, but it never appeared on the Server side. If packets aren’t arriving, you need to figure out where they’re getting dropped.
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Going to toot my own horn here but if you're looking for something like a container with a security focus that is precisely what https://nanos.org was built for. No users, no login/ssh, no ability to run other programs other than the one that is already running. It kills off entire CWE's such as CWE-77/CWE-78 and neutralizes a large amount of nasty payloads forcing attackers to put in the work. It has all the same security features you'll find in linux (aslr, stack exec off, rodata no exec, etc.) but more.
A go unikernel deployed in this manner might have 5 files on the fs so you don't have a half-dozen interpreters or live off the land binary type stuff. Beware though that not all unikernels are built the same way and don't share the same security profiles as nanos.
At the end of the day though if security is a driving force containers are simply not built for that. Just the other day CVE-2024-45310 landed and a few weeks ago we had CVE-2024-42472 in flakpak (a continuation of the bubblewrap stuff).
People are probably going to jump in here and mention gvisor and firecracker. Note that firecracker is really a machine monitor replacement and most payloads are still running a linux guest (although nanos can work here). Gvisor does deal with the security issue well enough but at the cost of performance if you don't have access to hw virtualization.
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SaaSHub
SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives
NOTE:
The open source projects on this list are ordered by number of github stars.
The number of mentions indicates repo mentiontions in the last 12 Months or
since we started tracking (Dec 2020).
C Security discussion
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The Impact of Open-Source Tools in Cyber Warfare: A Deep Dive
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A note from our sponsor - InfluxDB
www.influxdata.com | 12 May 2025
Index
What are some of the best open-source Security projects in C? This list will help you:
| # | Project | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nginx | 26,808 |
| 2 | radare2 | 21,639 |
| 3 | systeminformer | 11,814 |
| 4 | OpenVPN | 11,787 |
| 5 | nmap | 11,055 |
| 6 | Unicorn Engine | 8,143 |
| 7 | capstone | 7,991 |
| 8 | tpotce | 7,812 |
| 9 | system-bus-radio | 6,598 |
| 10 | aircrack-ng | 5,993 |
| 11 | AFLplusplus | 5,686 |
| 12 | Suricata | 5,241 |
| 13 | OSSEC | 4,714 |
| 14 | tetragon | 3,943 |
| 15 | openssh-portable | 3,347 |
| 16 | HyperDbg | 3,228 |
| 17 | honggfuzz | 3,180 |
| 18 | unikraft | 3,107 |
| 19 | pycryptodome | 2,999 |
| 20 | rizin | 2,900 |
| 21 | tcpdump | 2,898 |
| 22 | nanos | 2,780 |
| 23 | OpenSC | 2,739 |
Sponsored
InfluxDB – Built for High-Performance Time Series Workloads
InfluxDB 3 OSS is now GA. Transform, enrich, and act on time series data directly in the database. Automate critical tasks and eliminate the need to move data externally. Download now.
www.influxdata.com