Building Threat Feed Aggregation with MISP

Overview

MISP is the leading open-source threat intelligence platform for collecting, storing, distributing, and sharing cybersecurity indicators and threat intelligence. It aggregates feeds from OSINT sources, commercial providers, and sharing communities into a unified platform with automatic correlation, STIX/TAXII export, and direct integration with SIEMs and security tools. This skill covers deploying MISP via Docker, configuring feeds from sources like abuse.ch, AlienVault OTX, and CIRCL, setting up automated feed synchronization, and integrating with Splunk, Elasticsearch, and SOAR platforms.

When to Use

• When deploying or configuring building threat feed aggregation with misp capabilities in your environment
• When establishing security controls aligned to compliance requirements
• When building or improving security architecture for this domain
• When conducting security assessments that require this implementation

Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose for deployment
• Python 3.9+ with pymisp library for API interaction
• Linux server with 8GB+ RAM for production deployment
• Understanding of IOC types and threat intelligence lifecycle
• Network access to external feed URLs

Key Concepts

MISP Architecture

MISP stores threat intelligence as Events containing Attributes (IOCs) organized by type and category. Events can have Tags (MITRE ATT&CK, TLP marking, sector tags), Galaxies (threat actor profiles, malware families, attack patterns), and Objects (structured groupings of related attributes). Events are correlated automatically across the instance.

Feed Types

MISP supports three feed formats: MISP format (native JSON events), CSV (comma-separated IOCs), and freetext (unstructured text with automatic IOC extraction). Feeds can be remote (fetched from URLs) or local (uploaded files). MISP ships with 80+ default OSINT feeds including abuse.ch URLhaus, Botvrij, CIRCL OSINT, and malware traffic analysis.

Sharing and Synchronization

MISP instances can synchronize with other MISP instances via push/pull mechanisms. Sharing groups control distribution (organization only, this community, connected communities, all communities). The TAXII server module enables integration with STIX/TAXII consumers.

Workflow

Step 1: Deploy MISP with Docker

# docker-compose.yml for MISP deployment
version: '3.8'
services:
  misp:
    image: coolacid/misp-docker:core-latest
    container_name: misp
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "443:443"
      - "80:80"
    environment:
      - MYSQL_HOST=misp-db
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=misp
      - MYSQL_USER=misp
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD=misp_db_password_change_me
      - MISP_ADMIN_EMAIL=admin@organization.com
      - MISP_ADMIN_PASSPHRASE=admin_password_change_me
      - MISP_BASEURL=https://misp.organization.com
      - POSTFIX_RELAY_HOST=smtp.organization.com
      - TIMEZONE=UTC
    volumes:
      - misp-data:/var/www/MISP/app/files
      - misp-config:/var/www/MISP/app/Config
    depends_on:
      - misp-db
      - misp-redis

  misp-db:
    image: mysql:8.0
    container_name: misp-db
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=misp
      - MYSQL_USER=misp
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD=misp_db_password_change_me
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=root_password_change_me
    volumes:
      - misp-db-data:/var/lib/mysql

  misp-redis:
    image: redis:7
    container_name: misp-redis
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  misp-data:
  misp-config:
  misp-db-data:

Step 2: Configure Feeds via PyMISP API

from pymisp import PyMISP, MISPFeed
import json

class MISPFeedManager:
    def __init__(self, misp_url, misp_key, verify_ssl=False):
        self.misp = PyMISP(misp_url, misp_key, verify_ssl)
        print(f"[+] Connected to MISP: {misp_url}")

    def list_feeds(self):
        """List all configured feeds."""
        feeds = self.misp.feeds()
        enabled = [f for f in feeds if f.get("Feed", {}).get("enabled")]
        disabled = [f for f in feeds if not f.get("Feed", {}).get("enabled")]
        print(f"[+] Feeds: {len(enabled)} enabled, {len(disabled)} disabled")
        return feeds

    def enable_default_feeds(self):
        """Enable recommended default OSINT feeds."""
        recommended_feeds = [
            "CIRCL OSINT Feed",
            "Botvrij.eu - Indicators of Compromise",
            "abuse.ch URLhaus Host file",

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