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Protect your network with the world's most powerful Open Source detection software.
Snort is the foremost Open Source Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) in the world. Snort IPS uses a series of rules that help define malicious network activity and uses those rules to find packets that match against them and generates alerts for users.
Snort can be deployed inline to stop these packets, as well. Snort has three primary uses: As a packet sniffer like tcpdump, as a packet logger — which is useful for network traffic debugging, or it can be used as a full-blown network intrusion prevention system. Snort can be downloaded and configured for personal and business use alike.
Once downloaded and configured, Snort rules are distributed in two sets: The “Community Ruleset” and the “Snort Subscriber Ruleset.”
The Snort Subscriber Ruleset is developed, tested, and approved by Cisco Talos. Subscribers to the Snort Subscriber Ruleset will receive the ruleset in real time as they are released to Cisco customers. You can download the rules and deploy them in your network through the Snort.org website. The Community Ruleset is developed by the Snort community and QAed by Cisco Talos. It is freely available to all users.
For more information about Snort Subscriber Rulesets available for purchase, please visit the Snort product page.
Download and install the source code
If this is your first time installing Snort, please review the dependencies list.
https://github.com/snort3/snort3/releases
You can also get the code with:
git clone https://github.com/snort3/snort3.git
There are separate extras packages for cmake that provide additional features and demonstrate how to build plugins. The source for extras is in the snort3_extra.git repo.
Sign up and get your Oinkcode - a unique identifier that must be entered into your Snort instance that will automatically pull in Snort rules. All users have access to the Registered Rule Set. In order to get the latest detections (Subscriber Rule Set) you can upgrade your subscription at any time.
Sign up/SubscribeFor video instructions and additional documents, check out our resources page.
You can also read the Snort 3 instruction manual.
It is an open source intrusion prevention system capable of real-time traffic analysis and packet logging.
It is an open source intrusion prevention system capable of real-time traffic analysis and packet logging.
Open a Talos Intelligence IPS/IDS Support Ticket to submit Snort Rule false positives or request IPS/IDS coverage for a specific CVE.
Click here to find information regarding legacy Snort 2.0 versions.
©2025 Cisco and/or its affiliates. Snort, the Snort and Pig logo are registered trademarks of Cisco. All rights reserved.
©2025 Cisco and/or its affiliates. Snort, the Snort and Pig logo are registered trademarks of Cisco. All rights reserved.