Mini case study

How I built + validated 29 Wazuh rule blocks

Verified today: 29 blocks across 25 XML files

This is the practical workflow behind the Wazuh detection subset in HawkinsOperations, optimized for review speed and reproducibility.

Objective

Build a Wazuh rule set that maps to realistic SOC triage patterns, packages cleanly for deployment, and can be validated with a small set of commands from repo root.

Test method

  1. Author/tune XML rules under detection-rules/wazuh/rules/.
  2. Build deployment bundle with scripts/build-wazuh-bundle.ps1.
  3. Count files and count <rule id= blocks separately.
  4. Run representative alert simulations and verify generated evidence artifacts.

Validation commands

pwsh -File .\scripts\build-wazuh-bundle.ps1

(Get-ChildItem .\detection-rules\wazuh\rules -Filter *.xml).Count

Select-String -Path .\detection-rules\wazuh\rules\*.xml `
  -Pattern '

Evidence placeholders (redacted)

  • assets/screenshots/wazuh_bundle_build.png
  • assets/screenshots/wazuh_rule_fire_example.png
  • assets/screenshots/wazuh_count_validation.png

What I would improve next

  • Add synthetic event generators for regression testing.
  • Split high-noise patterns into tuning profiles per environment.
  • Publish a compact false-positive review matrix per rule family.