Cloud-native application security firm Sysdig Inc. today announced the launch of Stratoshark, a new open-source tool that extends Wireshark granular network visibility into the cloud and provides users a standardized approach to cloud system analysis.

Wireshark is a free, open-source network protocol analyzer that allows users to capture and interactively examine network traffic in real time for troubleshooting, analysis and security purposes. Twenty-seven years old, Wireshark has more than 5 million daily users and has seen more than 160 million downloads over the last decade, with users using the tool to analyze network traffic and troubleshoot issues. But as companies have moved to the cloud, analysts have lacked the same visibility from a comparable open-source tool.

Stratoshark fills that gap with features that unlock deep cloud visibility to assist in analyzing and troubleshooting cloud system calls and logs with a level of granularity and workflow familiar to longtime Wireshark users.

“Wireshark revolutionized network analysis by democratizing 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 and 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.”

Stratoshark leverages Falco libraries, repositories and plugins to unite deep cloud visibility with familiar Wireshark functionality. Falco is an open-source runtime security tool created by Sysdig that detects and alerts on unexpected behavior in cloud-native environments, such as Kubernetes, containers and hosts.

According to Sysdig, Stratoshark represents the next generation in a lineage of open-source tools that have set the security standard by simplifying complex investigations, accelerating incident response and equipping 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’s founder and chief technology officer Wireshark co-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.”

Stratoshark is free and available to download from Sysdig now.

Image: SiliconANGLE/Ideogram