Wazuh security platform

Just stumbled on this vid for Wazuh looks pretty interesting for inspecting security especially the CIS Benchmark that he mentions

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John did a great job on this video.

I’ve been thinking about this too. Looks like the server has 2 methods of install, APT and RPM so majority of Debian based and majority of RHEL based servers.

I think this is going to be in my “I’ll get to it” pile for the added features over my virus/malware software.

Yeah this looks like a mini project, devil might be in the detail, but looks straight forward to install on a headless Debian and leave running in a vm on my network.

Just in case anyone is interested, the installation script had issues with the latest version of Debian 12, installed ok on version 11.

In Network Chuck’s Wazuh video he installed Wazuh on a Linode instance. In a use case where you need to monitor remote endpoints with Wazuh over the Internet where the clients wouldn’t necessarily connect to a LAN or VPN what would you consider the necessary precautions to do this safely?

Do you think (self hosted) Wazuh is a suitable tool for MSP’s for instance?

We ended up deploying this a year or so ago using Linode. I have found it to work great and really has helped us monitor CVEs and compliance. Taylor Walton has some great videos and use cases. https://youtube.com/@taylorwalton_socfortress

I spun this up at work , put a few different purpose nodes on it in order to baseline security and get the CIS benchmarks to test with the organization. This tool has been invaluable for it.

John Hammond and Network Chuck were paid by Wazuh to make those videos and Wazuh has reached out to me offering to pay me to make one as well. I do very little sponsored paid content right now but I do have costs to cover and I am considering doing more.

My question is does a video being sponsored by the product they are talking about make you think differently about the video due to the business relationship and did you know those were sponsored? As someone who consumes content I think about this a lot and as a creator I always try to be very transparent which is why I am asking here to get your thoughts on the topic.

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Well just my opinion, I had no idea John’s video was sponsored, in fact I have never heard of him before, I simply thought the solution looked pretty neat without first setting it myself, others in the thread seem to back this up. Knowing the video is now sponsored, hasn’t really changed my mind.

Either way I’ve set it up, so presumably from Wazhu’s point of view the sponsorship worked.

If you like the product and think it has some useful benefit, then I don’t see any harm in promoting the item. The issue is perhaps if you promote something that you think is crap but don’t say so, you instantaneously lose your credibility.

Clearly you have good technical ability but more importantly you are willing to share this, in particular this is what attracted me to your videos. If you promote products that you would use yourself then that’s probably a good self check.

I watched most of that video and did not realize he was being paid for it. Makes sense now, he was either juiced up on caffeine and liked the product, or he was excited for the fat payday.

I don’t like the deceit. Being a salesman is one thing, being a shill is another.

Network chuck has turned into a huckster. He had promise years ago, but he never got past entry level stuff. Since there is no audience beyond entry level, he either had to go back to technical work or start selling. He can raise his eyebrows better than most and he is good at sales after 5 cups of coffee.

To answer your question directly, being a pitchman for a product will lower your cachet to some degree. There is some inevitable hit right off the top that I think you know you can’t avoid.

You are exchanging your credibility for cash at some fundamental level. And if your credibility is technical prowess, then you are exchanging more than if you are pretty and popular like Brad Pitt. I would happily exchange my smile for a fat payday over my hard earned reputation.

But to each his own. I understand if you go that route. Hell, I might do it myself if I were in your shoes. Like I said before, there is only so much ground to cover in youtube IT before the audience dries up.

John Hammond did say it was sponsored at the 39:20 mark.

Lol I suspect by that point I was on the wazuh website and not concentrating on the video.

I think its a fine line. Network Chuck, John H, you and some others are tech folks I trust. If they want to get paid to do a video about a product that’s fine and so far i think the things they have sponsored have been good. ie. seems they have been doing their due diligence on the products before they present. But that trust is a thin line and start doing videos on garbage then the trust is gone. To refer to @liquidjoe a bit i don’t think they are exchanging credibility for cash, but they are gambling with it.

I’m with everyone here. If it’s a sponsored deal then it depends on what the terms are. If they pay you to showcase something without your actual input then I might not take it too seriously, but it might be entertaining to watch. It’s always more interesting to get someone’s professional opinion and their experience with the product.

Paid sponsorships can help fund the channel which I am for, but can obviously turn away viewers due to the nature of the terms.

If it’s sponsored video, can you instead post it as a training rather than a review of the actual product.

I think that’s what John Hammond did, the video is more of tutorial rather than reviewing the product. In this way you are not being biased, you are sharing the knowledge on how you can use the product and how you can utilize the product in your environment rather than comparing the performance of the product and how effective the product.

This is how I see the intent of the video.

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The sponsored video does grind my gears a bit… The video should have been marked that it includes sponsored content, there is even a little check box to help you get this done. I think this is a place where Youtube enforcement needs to be stronger. Not everyone bothers to check that box.

I went back to Johns video, and I did notice that the Sponsored content CG was present, but what part was sponsored? I see that kind of flag and think, “great, another VPN shill will be incoming”. I’d prefer if it was clearly up front that the entire video is paid, as well as something in the title/description. Mentioning that the video is sponsored in the last 20 seconds of the video is not what I think is the right way to do it. First minute of the video would be better in my opinion. Tom is always more upfront about things like, “they sent me this thing to try out” or “loaned me this so I could work with it” which I think is a good thing.

Here is one thing I found on the Wazuh site, and maybe this is something Tom would want to get into, they offer paid live (virtual) training.

Maybe it would be worth becoming a training partner???

I think you are right. In the worst case a guy sells his credibility, in the best case he just uses it as collateral. That probably won’t ever come due if he picks the right products and plays it with an open hand. Of all people, I bet Tom would do a good job with this.

Well yeah, but I watched the video yesterday, and at the very end, after he had spoken enthusiastically about the product for 20 minutes, he casually mentioned in a half-sentence that the video was sponsored. :wink:
Of course, he had also labelled the video as “sponsored content”. However, he could have, and in my opinion should have, mentioned this at the beginning.

Also, looking at the comments on that video, I don’t think anyone realised that this video was sponsored, or maybe his audience just doesn’t care. I guess there are a lot of corporate IT decision makers in his audience who are used to making their decisions based on vendor marketing events, always looking for the next product that will auto-magically make their environment more secure. :wink:

That beeing said, I don’t have any fundamental problems with sponsored content, and if it helps your channel and you’re upfront about it, like in your previous sponsored videos, I’m all for it :slight_smile: