Sysdig, the leader in real-time cloud security, today announced the release of Stratoshark, an open source tool that extends Wireshark’s granular network visibility into the cloud and empowers users with a standardised approach to cloud observability. For 27 years, Wireshark – with over 5 million daily users and more than 160 million downloads in the last decade alone – has helped users analyse network traffic and troubleshoot issues. As companies have transitioned to the cloud, however, engineers and analysts have lacked the same visibility from a comparable open source tool. Stratoshark unlocks deep cloud observability and introspection, helping analyse and troubleshoot cloud system calls and logs with a level of granularity and workflow familiar to long-time Wireshark users.
With the growing transition, cloud security is facing a major skills gap. Considered one of the fastest-growing areas for digital transformation, there is a shortage of nearly 5 million qualified cybersecurity professionals [1], and nearly 40% of respondents in O’Reilly’s report, “The State of Security in 2024,” noted that cloud computing is a domain in which more skills are needed but increasingly difficult to find [2]. By combining Wireshark’s functionality with deep operational insight from open source Falco – the standard for cloud-native threat detection, with over 130 million downloads – Stratoshark unlocks rich cloud context and helps network analysts and administrators port their experience directly into the cloud.
“Wireshark revolutionised network analysis by democratising packet captures, a concept that Sysdig brought to cloud-native workloads and Falco extended to cloud runtime security,” said Gerald Combs, Stratoshark and Wireshark co-creator, Sysdig Director of Open Source Projects. “Wireshark users live by the phrase ‘pcap or it didn’t happen,’ but until now cloud packet capture hasn’t been easy or even possible. Stratoshark helps unlock this level of visibility, equipping network professionals with a familiar tool that makes system call and log analysis as accessible and transformative for the cloud as Wireshark did for network packet analysis.”
Continuing a Legacy of Innovation
As organizations have shifted to the cloud, where workloads are more distributed, dynamic, and short-lived than their traditional counterparts, visibility into system-level activities has become increasingly fragmented. Stratoshark seamlessly bridges the gap between network packet analysis and modern cloud-native security, delivering an open source solution with broad observability, enhanced extensibility, and greater developer accessibility.
In essence, Wireshark was developed to support monitoring and security for traditional on-premises networks, and many experienced network professionals have long sought a modern application for their expertise. Stratoshark leverages Falco libraries, repositories, and plug-ins, and unites its deep cloud visibility with familiar Wireshark functionality. Stratoshark represents the next generation in a lineage of open source tools that have set the security standard, simplifying complex investigations, accelerating incident response, and enabling network experts to bring their skills to the cloud.
“With Stratoshark, we’re bringing the proven principles of Wireshark to the complexities of modern environments,” said Loris Degioanni, Sysdig Founder and CTO; Stratoshark and Wireshark co-creator; and Falco creator. “By combining Wireshark’s rich network insights with Falco’s real-time cloud-native security, Stratoshark equips teams to better understand cloud events, logs, and system calls with open source accessibility.”
What People are Saying
“Stratoshark presents an exciting opportunity for longtime Wireshark users to apply their network analysis skills directly to the cloud, and the community couldn’t be more thrilled. Wireshark has empowered multiple generations of network professionals to analyse malicious behaviour, like lateral movement, ransomware spread, and communications from compromised systems, and Stratoshark equips them to modernize this skill set.”
Sheri Najafi, Executive Director at the Wireshark Foundation
“Stratoshark unlocks a new dimension of troubleshooting, allowing users to look deep into servers with the same fidelity that Wireshark has given them on networks. It sets a new standard for system call and log analysis, and opens the door for packet analysts to transfer their expertise to a new domain.”
Josh Clark, Performance Engineer for a large U.S. financial institution
“For over two decades, Wireshark has helped countless engineers filter network traffic to efficiently isolate and troubleshoot application issues by analysing evidence within network protocols. Stratoshark takes the best of Wireshark’s tools and equips today’s professionals with critical cloud system visibility and troubleshooting.
