Security Onion functions as a "Swiss Army knife" for defenders by bundling several best-of-breed open-source tools:
The (or ISO) is a bootable distribution designed for network security monitoring (NSM) , intrusion detection, and log management. While modern versions (2.4+) focus on permanent installations for scalability, the Live environment remains a critical entry point for quick network evaluations and forensic testing. Core Purpose and Use Cases Security Onion Live Cd
It includes a suite of offensive and defensive tools, such as nmap , metasploit , and scapy , to test existing IDS configurations or new deployments. Security Onion functions as a "Swiss Army knife"
Built on the Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) to store and visualize massive amounts of security data. Quick Start Guide Built on the Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana)
Employs Stenographer or Suricata PCAP to act as a "DVR for your network," recording every packet for retrospective analysis.