Sigma

Standardized, vendor-agnostic signatures for log-based threat detection

Sigma offers a flexible, community‑reviewed signature format for log events, enabling detection engineers and threat hunters to share and apply thousands of vendor‑agnostic rules across any SIEM.

Overview

Highlights

Continuously growing, community‑reviewed rule set (>3,000 rules)

Vendor‑agnostic format works with any log source or SIEM

Multiple rule types: generic, hunting, emerging threat

Conversion tools (Sigma CLI, pySigma, sigconverter.io) for native queries

Pros

Large, active community contributes and validates rules
Extensive library reduces time to build detections
Standardized syntax eases sharing across teams
Open tools for converting rules to platform‑specific queries

Considerations

Rules must be mapped to each SIEM’s query language
Quality can vary; peer review is not a guarantee
Learning curve for the Sigma rule syntax
No formal commercial support; relies on community

Managed products teams compare with

When teams consider Sigma, these hosted platforms usually appear on the same shortlist.

Elastic Security SIEM

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Looking for a hosted option? These are the services engineering teams benchmark against before choosing open source.

Fit guide

Great for

Detection engineers building reusable log‑based alerts
Threat hunters needing quick starting points for investigations
SOC teams that operate multiple SIEM products
Organizations wanting a shared, open detection standard

Not ideal when

Environments without a log‑collection or SIEM platform
Teams that require only proprietary, vendor‑specific signatures
Small groups lacking resources to maintain custom rules
Use cases demanding ultra‑low‑latency, real‑time detection only

How teams use it

Unified detection across heterogeneous log sources

Deploy a single rule set that generates consistent alerts regardless of the underlying SIEM.

Rapid response to emerging APT campaigns

Leverage timely Emerging Threat rules to detect new adversary techniques as they appear.

Automated conversion to native SIEM queries

Use Sigma CLI or pySigma to translate rules into Splunk, Elastic, or other platform queries for immediate integration.

Community sharing of custom detection logic

Contribute peer‑reviewed rules and benefit from a growing repository of shared expertise.

Tech snapshot

Python94%

Shell6%

Frequently asked questions

What is the purpose of Sigma?

Sigma provides a standardized, vendor‑agnostic format to describe log‑event detections, making rules shareable and reusable across any SIEM.

How can I apply Sigma rules to my SIEM?

Download rule packages, then convert them to your SIEM’s query language using the Sigma CLI, sigconverter.io, or the pySigma library.

Where do the rules come from?

Rules are contributed by a global community of detection engineers and are peer‑reviewed before inclusion in the main repository.

Under what license are Sigma rules released?

The rule content is released under the Detection Rule License (DRL) 1.1.

How can I contribute a new rule?

Follow the CONTRIBUTING guide in the repository and submit a pull request with your rule, adhering to the Sigma format.

Project at a glance

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Stars: 10,049
Watchers: 10,049
Forks: 2,522

Repo age9 years old

Last commit4 days ago

Primary languagePython

Last synced 3 hours ago