CrowdSec is a collaborative, distributed security engine designed for threat detection and infrastructure protection. It functions as an intrusion detection system that parses logs and network traffic to identify malicious patterns, utilizing a bucket-based threshold detection model to aggregate events and trigger alerts. The platform is built on a modular architecture that includes a centralized local API server for managing security signals and a relational database for persistent storage of remediation decisions.
What distinguishes the project is its decoupled enforcement model, which offloads active blocking to lightweight external components known as bouncers. These bouncers query the central API to synchronize threat intelligence and apply real-time remediation across distributed environments. The system also features a hub-based configuration management framework, allowing users to download and deploy community-curated security scenarios, parsers, and collections to ensure consistent protection against evolving threats.
The platform provides a comprehensive suite of tools for security operations, including automated log parsing pipelines, event-driven plugin systems for notification workflows, and extensive command-line utilities for infrastructure management. It supports flexible deployment patterns across standalone, containerized, and cloud-native environments, enabling centralized orchestration of security agents and fleet-wide monitoring of threat activity.
The project includes a robust documentation and command-line interface that facilitates the lifecycle management of security components, from initial service discovery and configuration to the validation of detection logic and the auditing of active security policies.
