Sysdig Announces New Wireshark Foundation to Foster Open Source Innovation and Development
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SAN FRANCISCO (March 1, 2023) – Sysdig Inc., the unified cloud and container security leader, today announced a new foundation that will serve as the long-term custodian of the Wireshark open source project. Wireshark is the world’s foremost traffic protocol analyzer, with more than 2,000 contributors and over 60 million downloads in the last five years. Sysdig, as Wireshark’s current corporate sponsor, encouraged the creation of the foundation. The nonprofit will be home to SharkFest, Wireshark’s developer and user conference, and the Wireshark source code and assets.
Save the date – the 2023 SharkFest schedule:
The history of Wireshark
Ethereal, the predecessor of Wireshark, was originally created in 1998 by Gerald Combs, Director of Open Source Projects at Sysdig. Together, Gerald and Loris Degioanni, CTO and Founder of Sysdig, launched Wireshark in 2006. An open source GUI network package capturing tool, Wireshark enables teams to monitor network traffic, learn protocols and packet basics, and troubleshoot network problems. Wireshark is the de facto standard for checking health and security at a packet level. Wireshark takes packet captures and saves them for later viewing. Teams can filter through that traffic to find evidence from an incident.
The Wireshark Foundation will have an open governance model that encourages participation and technical contribution. The foundation will provide a framework for long-term stewardship and sustainability of projects it governs. The foundation is launching with Sheri Najafi as the foundation’s executive director, and Loris Degioanni, Janice Spampinato, Hansang Bae, Sheri Najafi, and Gerald Combs on the board. The foundation will also take over management of SharkFest. SharkFest provides a unique opportunity for industry experts and the developer and user communities to share knowledge.
Open source is the right approach to security
Proprietary solutions alone are not enough to counter the ever-expanding list of attack techniques. Open source is the only approach with the agility and broad reach to set up the conditions to meet modern security concerns, well-demonstrated by Wireshark over its 25 years of development. Sysdig believes that collaboration that brings together both expertise and scrutiny, and a broader range of use cases, will ultimately drive more secure software.
Sysdig was founded as an open source company, and the Sysdig platform was built on an open source foundation to address the security challenges of modern cloud applications. Open source Sysdig and Falco are projects created by Sysdig to leverage deep visibility as a foundation for security. These projects have become standards for container and cloud threat detection and incident response. Falco, which Sysdig contributed to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in 2018, is now an incubation-level hosted project with more than 50 million downloads. In addition to Sysdig-created tools, Sysdig is powered by open source tools, such as OPA, Prometheus, and eBPF.
What people have to say
Loris Degioanni, Founder and CTO of Sysdig
“We want Wireshark to be set up for long-term success, which includes ensuring the health and independence of the project. Moving Wireshark to a foundation guarantees that Gerald and the rest of the core developers own and operate Wireshark. The open source users can count on the fact that Wireshark will remain an important industry standard for a long time, and that its development will continue to be driven by the community.”
Gerald Combs, Director of Open Source Projects at Sysdig
“It is clear that Sysdig is an open source company through and through. While other companies claim to support the open source community, Sysdig has actually followed through. They not only contributed Falco and the largest set of eBPF libraries to the CNCF, but they have encouraged the creation of a foundation for Wireshark. The Wireshark community and I look forward to investigating ways to extend Wireshark to address new challenges, including securing the cloud.”
Sheri Najafi, Executive Director, Wireshark Foundation
“We’re very excited for the formation of the Wireshark Foundation, a nonprofit organization with the mission to help as many people as possible understand their networks through the ongoing evolution of Wireshark and the SharkFest conferences. The Wireshark Foundation fosters open source development and will continue to explore new ways of educating the public.”
Resources
[email protected]
703-473-4051
Save the date – the 2023 SharkFest schedule:
- SharkFest Asia (Singapore), April 17-19, 2023
- SharkFest North America (San Diego), June 10-15, 2023
- SharkFest Europe (Location/Date TBA)
The history of Wireshark
Ethereal, the predecessor of Wireshark, was originally created in 1998 by Gerald Combs, Director of Open Source Projects at Sysdig. Together, Gerald and Loris Degioanni, CTO and Founder of Sysdig, launched Wireshark in 2006. An open source GUI network package capturing tool, Wireshark enables teams to monitor network traffic, learn protocols and packet basics, and troubleshoot network problems. Wireshark is the de facto standard for checking health and security at a packet level. Wireshark takes packet captures and saves them for later viewing. Teams can filter through that traffic to find evidence from an incident.
The Wireshark Foundation will have an open governance model that encourages participation and technical contribution. The foundation will provide a framework for long-term stewardship and sustainability of projects it governs. The foundation is launching with Sheri Najafi as the foundation’s executive director, and Loris Degioanni, Janice Spampinato, Hansang Bae, Sheri Najafi, and Gerald Combs on the board. The foundation will also take over management of SharkFest. SharkFest provides a unique opportunity for industry experts and the developer and user communities to share knowledge.
Open source is the right approach to security
Proprietary solutions alone are not enough to counter the ever-expanding list of attack techniques. Open source is the only approach with the agility and broad reach to set up the conditions to meet modern security concerns, well-demonstrated by Wireshark over its 25 years of development. Sysdig believes that collaboration that brings together both expertise and scrutiny, and a broader range of use cases, will ultimately drive more secure software.
Sysdig was founded as an open source company, and the Sysdig platform was built on an open source foundation to address the security challenges of modern cloud applications. Open source Sysdig and Falco are projects created by Sysdig to leverage deep visibility as a foundation for security. These projects have become standards for container and cloud threat detection and incident response. Falco, which Sysdig contributed to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in 2018, is now an incubation-level hosted project with more than 50 million downloads. In addition to Sysdig-created tools, Sysdig is powered by open source tools, such as OPA, Prometheus, and eBPF.
What people have to say
Loris Degioanni, Founder and CTO of Sysdig
“We want Wireshark to be set up for long-term success, which includes ensuring the health and independence of the project. Moving Wireshark to a foundation guarantees that Gerald and the rest of the core developers own and operate Wireshark. The open source users can count on the fact that Wireshark will remain an important industry standard for a long time, and that its development will continue to be driven by the community.”
Gerald Combs, Director of Open Source Projects at Sysdig
“It is clear that Sysdig is an open source company through and through. While other companies claim to support the open source community, Sysdig has actually followed through. They not only contributed Falco and the largest set of eBPF libraries to the CNCF, but they have encouraged the creation of a foundation for Wireshark. The Wireshark community and I look forward to investigating ways to extend Wireshark to address new challenges, including securing the cloud.”
Sheri Najafi, Executive Director, Wireshark Foundation
“We’re very excited for the formation of the Wireshark Foundation, a nonprofit organization with the mission to help as many people as possible understand their networks through the ongoing evolution of Wireshark and the SharkFest conferences. The Wireshark Foundation fosters open source development and will continue to explore new ways of educating the public.”
Resources
- Press release when Sysdig assumed responsibility for Wireshark
- Wireshark website
- Sysdig’s open source history
Media contact
Amanda McKinney Smith[email protected]
703-473-4051
In the cloud, every second counts. Attacks unfold in minutes and security teams must protect the business without slowing it down. Sysdig, the leader and outperformer in the “2024 GigaOm Radar for Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPPs),” stops cloud attacks in seconds and instantly detects changes in risk with real-time insights and open source Falco. Sysdig Sage™, the industry’s first AI cloud security analyst, uplevels human response and enables security, developers, and DevOps to work together, faster. By correlating signals across cloud workloads, identities, and services, Sysdig uncovers hidden attack paths and prioritizes real risk. From prevention to defense, Sysdig helps enterprises focus on what matters: innovation.
Sysdig. Secure Every Second.