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Zeek

Network security monitoring and traffic analysis framework

Network analysis framework, formerly Bro, that turns traffic into rich, structured logs of connections and protocols, with its own scripting language.

Open sourceBSD-3-Clause
Alternative toDarktrace
Homepage of Zeek
Official website (zeek.org), captured by ThreatWire.

What Zeek does

Zeek observes network traffic passively and writes structured logs that describe what happened: connections, DNS queries, HTTP requests, TLS certificates, files and much more. Instead of only signature alerts, it gives analysts a detailed record of network activity for detection, hunting and forensics.

Its event-driven scripting language lets teams write custom detections and protocol analysis, and a package manager distributes community extensions. Zeek is often deployed next to a signature IDS such as Suricata.

Key features

  • Detailed logs for many network protocols
  • Event-driven scripting language
  • Package manager for community extensions
  • Cluster deployment for high-volume links
  • File analysis and intelligence framework

Licence

BSD-3-Clause · BSD 3-Clause License · Open source

GitHub does not detect the licence; the COPYING file is the BSD 3-clause text.

Checked by ThreatWire against the repository's licence file on 2026-10-20. GitHub detects: NOASSERTION.

Security of Zeek itself

25 published advisories for Zeek in GitHub repository advisories; the 12 most recent are listed. Keep the tool updated: security tools often run with broad access.

Sources: GitHub repository advisories · checked 2026-10-20.

Categories and tags

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